
Qass. 
Book. 







Semi-Centennial 



OP THE 



Lincoln -Douglas Debates in Illinois 

1858-1908 



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CIRCULAR OF SUGGESTIONS FOR 
SCHOOL CELEBRATIONS 



Prepared by a Committee from the Advisory Commission 

to the Board of Directors of the Illinois 

State Historical Library 



Issued by F. G. BLAIR, SuperintendeRt 
of Public Instruction 



CTmotiU TglcowaL>6j 



Spbingfibld, Illinois 
Phillips Beos., Statb Pbinters. 

1908 




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Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 

Springfield, Illinois, March i, 1908. 

To the Teachers and Pupils of Illinois: 

In publishing this well selected and valuable collection of material 
on the Lincoln-Douglas debates the Department of Public Instruction 
does itself an honor and the children of the State a distinct service. 
Its preparation has required the time and energy of busy, capable men 
and I am sure that the teachers and pupils will fully appreciate the ser- 
vices rendered. Although purely a labor of love on their part, I firmly 
believe that the assurance that they have aroused in the minds of the 
children of Illinois a keener interest in and a better understanding of 
this really great event will be an ample and a satisfactory reward for 
their effort. 

The topic for the essay to be prepared for the educational exhibit 
of the State fair by pupils of the graded schools and high schools for 
this year is the Lincoln-Douglas debates. This circular will provide 
these pupils with the right sort of material to use in the writing of 
these essays. 

It is requested that at least one copy of this pamphlet be placed in 
every school library in the State. 

Yours sincerely, 



oft. 




Superintendent of Public Instruction. 




CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS, 1858. 



CIRCULAR 24 



Semi-Centennial 



OF THE 



Lincoln - Douglas Debates in Illinois 

1858-1908 



CIRCULAR OF SUGGESTIONS FOR 
SCHOOL CELEBRATIONS 



Prepared by a Committee from the Advisory Commission 

to the Board of Directors of the Illinois 

State Historical Library 



EDWIN E. SPARKS, Chairman. University of Chicago. 

JAMES A. JAMES, Northwestern University. 

EDWARD C. PAGE. Northern Illinois State Normal School. 



Issued by F. G. BLAIR, Superintendent 
of Public Instruction 



SPRrNGFtELD, ILLINOIS 

Phillips Bros., State Printers. 

1908 



y-rrcolniflns 



D« Of ^v Q 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Suggestions to teachers 6 

Introduction 7 

Origin and Outcome of the Debates 9 

An Eastern Reporter's View of Western Stump Speaking 11 

As a Republican Reporter Saw It 12 

How Douglas reached Illinois 14 

The Great Debate (from the Crisis) 14 

The Debate and the Debaters (from The Illini) 16 

Birthplace of Douglas 18 

Stephen A. Douglas, by Samuel P. Orth 19 

Stephen A. Douglas, by Joseph A. Wallace 20 

Abraham Lincoln, by David B. Locke 20 

Lincoln and Douglas, by Cassius M. Clay 21 

Contrast between Lincoln and Douglas, by Gen. James B. Fry 22 

Douglas and Lincoln, by Stephen B. Warden 22 

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 22 

The Great Debate, by Samuel P. Orth 23 

As an Eastern Reporter Saw Them 25 

How Douglas travelled 25 

As Douglas appeared at close of debates 26 

Selections from the debates 26 

Lincoln and Douglas at Freeport ; a dialogue ._ 28 

Old Dan Tucker 34 

A Douglas Song 34 

Oh, you can't go the Caper, Stephen 34 

Wide Awake Club song 35 

For Good Little Democrats 35 

A Boy's Wish • • 35 

A Douglas to the Fray 36 

Douglas' Complaint 36 

Uncle Abe 36 

Emerson on Lincoln's Literary Ability 37 

Dedication of Gettysburg Battle Field 37 

A Last Glimpse of the Rivals 37 

Bury Me in the Morning, by Stephen A. Douglas 38 

Last Words of Douglas 38 

Bibliography 39 



SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHERS OF ILLINOIS. 



The year 1908 witnesses the semi-centennial anniversary of the 
memorable debate between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln 
for the vacant United States Senatorship from Illinois ; but in reality 
the prize was larger because each became a candidate for the presi- 
dency two years later. Under the direction of the Illinois Historical 
Society, celebrations will be held this year in each of the seven places 
where the debates took place and on the exact day, viz : Ottawa, 
August 21; Freeport, August 27; Jonesboro, Sept. 15; Charleston, 
Sept. 18; Galesburg, Oct. 7; Quincy, Oct. 13; Alton, Oct. 15. Public 
attention will thus be drawn to this important event in Illinois history, 
and the time seems suited to a study of the debates, their origin and 
results, and the topics they mainly discussed. While the debates belong 
properly to local history, in their results they became a part of national 
history. To devote one or more days of the present year to a study of 
the debates and the debaters would seem to be time well spent. 

It was not the purpose of the compilers of this pamphlet to make 
programs for celebrating special days, but to furnish materials from 
which programs could be made. Only such selections as bear directly 
on the debates have been included, with possibly one or two exceptions. 
The literature on both Lincoln and Douglas is voluminous and can be 
drawn upon at will to supplant the material here given. Teachers 
can arrange the selections in this pamphlet as readings or recitations 
or songs in many ways to make up an attractive program for an after- 
noon. Some of the descriptions lend themselves naturally for readings 
by the teacher to the pupils, with such explanations as will make the 
scenes intelligible to the youthful imagination. For additional matter 
bearing on the debates, consult the list of books printed in this pam- 
phlet. The list is not intended to be exhaustive, but such volumes have 
been selected as are likely to be had in any community. If this booklet 
proves serviceable to the teachers of the State, the compilers will be 
compensated for their labor of love. 

Edward C. Page. 
James A. James, 
Edward C. Page. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin county, Kentucky, Feb. 12, 
1809. Little is known of his boyhood which was passed in the 
midst of most desolate surroundings. The family moved to Indiana 
when "Abe" was seven years old; twelve years later they emigrated to 
Illinois, settling near Decatur. Privation, trial and labor he knew 
intimately in those days. 

All told, he attended schools, such as they were, about a year. Dur- 
ing the intervals of his work, he is said to have read, written and 
ciphered incessantly. Although knowledge was not acquired rapidly 
by him, he mastered such books as he could procure. Among these 
were the Bible, Aesop's Fables, Pilgrim's Progress, and a history of 
the United States. 

As a laborer, much sought after because of his strength and intelli- 
gence, he showed the characteristics for which he was always noted, 
such as generosity, courage, honesty, ready wit, sympathy and fair- 
mindedness. Flat-boatmen, surveyor and store-keeper in turn, he was, 
at the age of twenty-seven, admitted to the practice of law. He became 
the most eminent jury lawyer in Illinois, but his interest was in poli- 
tics. No speaker was more popular or effective. 

Elected to Congress in 1847, ne became noted for his anti-slavery 
views. As he himself said, he "voted in favor of the Wilmot Proviso 
in one way or another about forty times." To the great disappointment 
of Mr. Lincoln, Lyman Trumbull defeated him for the United States 
Senate in 1855. 

But his career really began when during the summer of 1858 he 
met Stephen A. Douglas in joint debate. Objection was made by some 
of his friends to the statement he proposed to include in his speech 
accepting the nomination, which was as follows: "A house divided 
against itself can not stand, I believe this government can not endure 
permanently half slave and half free." When objection was made by 
his friends, he replied, "Gentlemen, I have thought much on this and 
it must remain. If it must be that I go down because of this speech, 
then let me go down linked to truth. This nation can not live on 
injustice — a hou'se divided against itself can not stand. I say it again 
and again." Such an outspoken statement of his convictions was to 
make him, although defeated by Douglas for the senate, the candidate 
of the northwest for the presidency in i860. 



8 

Stephen A. Douglas was born in Brandon, Vermont, April 23, 1813, 
the son of a physician. His mother was left a widow when Stephen 
was a child, and when grown he was compelled to work on a farm to 
aid in supporting the family, attending school only during the winter 
months. He also learned the trade of cabinet maker. Determining 
to make his own way in the world, he came to Illinois when he was 
twenty years of age. Being admitted to the bar and entering politics, 
he became a typical man of the west, always contending for the rights 
of that section. The men of his time speak of his fearlessness and 
his quickness of apprehension ; his strong will and indomitable energy. 
His education was imperfect, but he overcame all obstacles by an 
imperious determination to succeed. Preferment came to him so often 
that his asking almost signified the granting by the people. The 
offices of Attorney General of Illinois, legislator, Secretary of State 
and Judge of the Supreme Court were given to him within the space 
of eight years. Three times he was elected to the House of Representa- 
tives and was serving a second term in the United States Senate when 
his place was contested by Mr. Lincoln, a situation which led to the 
great debate between the two. His ambition prompted him to attempt 
to win national regard by advocating the theory that the people of 
Kansas should be allowed to determine for themselves whether they 
would come into the Union a free or slave state. Being short of 
statute and yet of powerful physical strength, had won for Douglas the 
nickname of the "Little Giant." The debate was said to be a contest 
between "Old Abe" and the "Little Giant." 

At the close of the debate the election was held which chose a ma- 
jority of the State Legislature favorable to Douglas instead of Lincoln 
and the former was consequently returned to the Senate. Two years 
later he was nominated by one branch of the Democratic party for the 
presidency and was therefore an unsuccessful candidate against his 
old rival, Lincoln. Although an intense partisan, he was a more intense 
patriot and immediately upon the breaking out of the war, he tendered 
his services to President Lincoln. He died in 1861 and lies buried on 
the lake shore in Chicago. 



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The Origin and the Outcome of the Debates. 



When Lincoln ended his single term in Congress in March, 1849, 
he retired to his law practice and gave it more exclusive attention 
than ever before. During the next five years he was gradually losing 
his interest in politics, as he himself tells us. The passage of the 
Kansas-Nebraska Act, in May 1854, fathered by Senator Douglas, 
with its repeal of the Missouri Compromise, changed his whole atti- 
tude. Immediately he was "aroused," as he expressed it. His strong 
patriotism and his high conception of legal and moral justice inspired 
him with a new zeal and he was soon addressing politcal gatherings. 

Generally the ready wit and broad humor of the speeches of former 
days were missing. Instead, the listeners were moved by new earnest- 
ness and seriousness of argument. Passing by personal issues, leaving 
unmentioned the policies of the day, Lincoln fixed his attention upon 
the Kansas-Nebraska question ; consequently, he came to be regarded 
as the natural antagonist of Douglas. , 

At the State fair, with its usual political tournament, these leaders 
came into conflict. Douglas made a speech on the first day of the 
fair to which Lincoln replied the next day and Douglas made re- 
joinder. A few days later they met again at Peoria, by arrangement. 
And so the issues were joined. 

Two years later, on the occasion of the organizaton of the Republi- 
can party at Bloomington, Lincoln made an impassioned speech which 
fixed once for all his position as popular leader of the anti-slavery 
sentiment of Illinois. The civil war in Kansas and the Dred Scott 
decision only served to arouse Lincoln to earnestness more intense than 
ever. 

In June, 1857, at Springfield, Douglas made an elaborate speech on 
Kansas and the Dred Scott decision. Two weeks later at the same 
place, Lincoln made a telling reply. Thus again the great protagonists 
joined issues as they approached the campaign of 1858, in which a 
successor to Senator Douglas was to be elected. 

Of course Douglas had no rival in his own party and, of course, 
the Republicans could think of no one else as their candidate except 
Lincoln, who, alone of all of the men of the day, had with any scucess 
met Douglas in political discussion. The endorsement of Lincoln was 
made by the Republican state convention June 16, 1858. 



IO 

On the evening of that day Lincoln accepted the candidacy in a 
speech which was one of the most carefully wrought out and perhaps 
the most important of his whole life. It sounded the keynote of the 
entire contest. We quote the opening sentences: 

"If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we 
could better judge what to do now, and how to do it. We are now far into 
the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and con- 
fident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation 
of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly 
augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been 
reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself can not stand.' I believe 
this government can not endure permanently half slave and half free. 
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; 
but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, 
or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further 
spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that 
it is the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward 
till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, north as 
well as south." 

His closing sentences ring out like a battle cry : 

"Our cause must be entrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted 
friends — those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do 
care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered 
over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse 
of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against 
us. Of strange discordant, and even hostile elements we gathered from the 
four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant 
hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then, 
to falter now — now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered and 
belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if we stand firm, 
we shall not fail.. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it; but 
sooner or later the victory is sure to come." 

The battle was soon on. Douglas assumed the offensive and Lincoln 
dogged his every foot-step. Douglas made speeches at Chicago, 
Bloomington and Springfield in quick succession. Lincoln followed 
him at Chicago and Springfield with addresses of much force. 

But it was evident that Douglas, with his air of superiority, his 
elusive strategy in argumentation, his sentimental methods, was bound 
to defeat any effort to secure honest investigation or intelligent discus- 
sion and so was gaining an unfair advantage. Consequently, Lincoln 
and his managers determined to challenge Douglas to a formal debate 
of the questions at issue. The challenge was accepted and the, terms 
easily agreed upon. The two' men were to meet at one place in each of 
seven congressional districts : Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, 
Galesburg, Ouincy and Alton. They had already spoken in the dis- 
tricts in which Chicago and Springfield were located. Douglas was 
to speak one hour at Ottawa, Lincoln to reply for one hour and a half, 
and Douglas to make a half hour's rejoinder. Lincoln was to open 
and close at Freeport, and so on alternately. 

This gave Douglas four openings and closings and Lincoln only 
three; but Lincoln agreed to it, probably not altogether out of good 
nature, for in regard to a similar arrangement on an occasion several 
vears before, he said "My consenting to it was not wholly unselfish, 
for I suspected, if it were understood that the judge was entirely 



II 

done, you Democrats would leave and not hear me ; but by giving him 
the close, I felt confident you would stay for the fun of hearing him 
skin me." 

Soon after the debates were begun it was evident that Douglas was 
now on the defensive. Under the impartial rules of debate and con- 
fronted by audiences made up of friend and foe, his artful expedients, 
his adroit evasion, his equivocal logic were no match for the keen 
analysis, the unerring logic, the concise statement, the profound 
earnestness and the fervid eloquence of his opponent. 

And so the campaign was fought and the election for members of 
the Legislature was held. The Republican ticket received 125,430 
votes, and the Douglas ticket 121,609. But by virtue of an unfair 
legislative apportionment, the Democrats had 54 votes on joint ballot 
in the General Assembly and the Republicans only 46. So Douglas 
was re-elected Senator. 

Such were the immediate results of the contest. The indirect results 
were far reaching. In the first place, Lincoln had compelled Douglas 
to declare that the people of a territory, in spite of the Dred Scott de- 
cision, might contrive to keep slavery out of the territory. This 
greatly angered the south and irrevocably set that section against 
Douglas' aspirations for the presidency. As a result, the Democratic 
party was irreparably rent in twain in i860. 

In the second place, with Douglas, of Illinois, as the northern 
Democratic candidate for the presidency in i860, the Republicans were 
compelled to nominate an Illinois candidate, if they hoped to carry 
the State, and of course that state was necessary to secure national 
success. Therefore, the logic of the situation compelled the nomination 
of Lincoln, the only man who had ever met Douglas successfully in de- 
bate ; the only man who had won more votes than he in a popular 
election. 

It is not fulsome praise to say that from the standpoint both of 
forensic merit and of far-reaching results the Lincolin-Douglas de- 
bates stand among the momentous events of all nations and of all 
ages. 



AN EASTERN REPORTER'S VIEW OF WESTERN STUMP SPEAKING. 

"It is astonishing how deep an interest in politics this people take. Over 
long weary miles of hot and dusty prairie the processions of eager partisans 
come — on foot, on horsebock, in wagons drawn by horses or mules: men, 
women, and children, old and young; the half sick, just out of the last 
'shake'; children in arms, infants on the maternal breast, pushing on in 
clouds of dust and beneath the blazing sun; settling down at the town where 
the meeting is, with hardly a chance for sitting, and even less opportunity 
for eating; waiting in anxious groups for hours at the places of speaking, 
talking, discussing, litigious, vociferous, while the war artillery, the music 
of the bands, the waving of banners, the huzza'l - of the crowds, as delegation 
after delegation appears; the cry of the peddlei ^ending all sorts of wares, 
from an infallible cure of 'agur to a monster w& r melon in slices to suit 
the purchasers — combine to render the occasion a scene of confusion and 
commotion. The hour of one arrives and a perfect rush is made for the 



12 

grounds; a column of dust is rising to the heavens and fairly deluging those 
who are hurrying on through it. Then the speakers come with flags, and 
banners, and music, surrounded by cheering partisans. Their arrival at 
the grounds and immediate approach to the stand is the signal for shouts 
that rend the heavens. They are introduced to the audience amidst pro- 
longed and enthusiastic cheers; they are interrupted by frequent applause; 
and they sit down finally amid the same uproarious demonstration. The 
audience sit or stand patiently throughout, and, as the last word is spoken, 
make a break for their homes, first hunting up lost members of their 
families, getting their scattered wagon loads together, and, as the daylight 
fades away, entering again upon the broad prairies and slowly picking 
their way back to the place of beginning." — Special correspondence from 
Charleston, Illinois, to the New York Post, Sept. 24, 1858. 



AS A REPUBLICAN REPORTER SAW IT. 

(Special Correspondence of the Missouri Democrat, a Republican Paper.) 

St. Louis, Wednesday, Sept. 29, 1858. 
A brief visit to our sister State of Illinois, will convince anyone who 
may be skeptical on the subject, that the temperature of the political 
atmosphere east of the Mississippi, is of tropical intensity. The excitement 
pervaded all sections of the State and all classes of its citizens. We, in 
Missouri, are no strangers to political contests of a fierce and absorbing 
character, but the pending one in Illinois, surpasses anything we have ex- 
perienced. Our neighbors' minds are so wholly concentrated in the canvass, 
that one might say, they would not be sensible to the throes of an earthquake, 
any more than the Roman and Carthagenian armies were at Thrasimene. 

We put up at the St. Nicholas, where we met Mr. Lincoln next morning. 
No two men could exhibit a stronger contrast than he and Douglas. The 
contrast is so marked, morally and intellectually, as physically. Douglas 
is short and thick; Lincoln is tall and slender. The former is fleshy and 
ruddy in the face; the latter is spare, and his complexion dark. He is 
considerably over six feet, and hence the sobriquet of Long Abe. His 
weight at present is one hundred and sixty-eight pounds — several pounds 
more than it was when he commenced his canvass. He speaks in a genial, 
humorous style, and eschews l'ant and boisterous declamation, while 
Douglas seldom utters anything else. He is scrupulous in his statement 
of facts, and treats his opponent with a deference which the latter is in- 
capable of reciprocating. Judging from the speech which Lincoln delivered 
that day, I should think he, more than any public man of the present time, 
infuses the milk of human kindness, and the frankness and courtesy of a 
gentleman of the old school into his discussions. He says nothing calculated 
to wound the feelings of Douglas, except the feelings of ambition, and 
that his arguments sorely wound. He wins his way rather than forces it, 
while his opponent deals in exaggerated statements, glaring sophistries, and 
coarse, fierce declamation. Douglas has cast his fortunes on a sentiment — 
the antipathy of the white to the black race, and he spares no effort, and 
disregards ail consider? tions of justice or honesty in his labors to blacken 
the Republican party with the odium of negro equality. He is conscious 
that all debates on the acknowledged doctrines of both parties must result 
in his discomfiture, and consequently the staple of his speeches is a tirade 
of vulgar demagogism, as slanderous as it is absurd. Whatever incidental 
topics he may treat, it will be found that the substance of his speeches in 
this canvass is an invocation of prejudice — a prosecution of the Republican 
party for sentiments which they repudiate, and from which their dogmas 
vindicate them completely. Lincoln, on the contrary, confines himself to 
the record, and measures the language in which he enforces his charges 
against Douglas and the National Democratic party. He has not once dur- 
ing the canvass suffered himself to be betrayed into exaggeration or vindi- 



13 

cativeness, much less into acerbity of temper; whereas Douglas has fallen 
into an impotent passion several times, and expressed himself in disgusting 
epithets applied to his opponents. 

When the time came for going to Jacksonville, Lincoln and Blair were- 
induced by their admiring friends at Springfield into a carriage which 
took up its appointed place in the procession that marched to the depot. 
From an early hour in the morning Springfield had been agitated with the* 
note of preparation. The reveille was played at six o'clock in the square 
which surrounds the capitol. Flags and music, and the movements of men 
in uniform, and other signs showed that the day was to be a gala-day. The 
special train for the occasion was not capable of carrying one-third of 
those who were going to the meeting. A delay of an hour ensued, for the- 
managers of the railroad had to tax all their resources to furnish the 
requisite number of cars. Not less than a thousand persons went from 
Springfield to Jacksonville. The train was as long a passenger train as I 
ever saw. We enumerated Republican delegations at every intermediate 
town, and crowds of spectators who cheered lustily for Lincoln. 

The adjoining counties of Sangamon and Morgan, through which we passed, 
and in which Springfield and Jacksonville are respectively situated, are in 
a high state of cultivation. The country is level and the soil a dark rich 
loam. The hedges of osage orange, which are numerous, and which promise- 
before long to surround every field, are a novel and a very pleasing feature. 
Their beauty as well as utility is remarkable in a treeless prairie. No- 
resident of a slave state could pass through the splendid farms of Sanga- 
mon and Morgan, without permitting an envious sigh to escape him at th& 
evident superiority of free labor. In the slave states, it would seem, that 
man and the soil which he cultivates are enemies. It would seem that he 
must extort its produce as the tax-gatherer extorts tribute from a conquered 
but hostile people. In the free states on the contrary the soil seems to 
shower its wealth upon the cultivator with a most generous and royal 
bounty. It brings forth kindly all abundance, and smiles upon him in 
all the four seasons. The dumb earth itself seems to wear a cheerless aspect, 
and to yield its wealth charily and reluctantly to slave labor. 

The reception which Lincoln and Blair received at Jacksonville, was cordial 
and magnificent. The street which leads from the depot to the public 
square, was filled with people on foot, on horseback, and in vehicles, with a 
multitude of devices, mottoes, flags, etc. The procession might be said 
without any stretch of fancy, to bear a striking similitude to an army with 
banners. The sidewalks were crowded, and mainly with the fair sex. The 
streets of the square were also crowded, and fair faces shone in all the- 
windows, and white kerchiefs were waved by white hands. Any estimate 
of the numbers can only be conjectural. There were thousands there, but 
whether ten, fifteen or twenty, I was unable to determine. Prominent 
friends of Douglas, admitted that it was a larger meeting than that which 
their leader had, and they tried to account for it by the Fair which was to 
commence next day, and which they said had brought many strangers to 
town. 

Whether this circumstance contributed to the magnitude and spirit of the 
demonstration, I am unable to say; but that the demonstration was the most 
remarkable and colossal one I hereby affirm. That it was superior to the 
Douglas demonstration which preceded it, is conceded by all who witnessed 
both. What rendered it so remarkable to me, was the extent to which 
the ladies participated in it, and the conspicuous part which was assigned 
to them in programme. We behold the revival of the customs of classic 
antiquity in our electioneering tactics. Young and beautiful virgins clothed 
in white and crowned with wreaths of leaves and flowers, are seen in our 
political processions. American politics are reviving those ceremonies, and 
borrowing those influences, which the priests of Diana found so graceful 
and impressive. There were two barge-shaped vehicles in the procession at 
Jacksonville, each containing a bevy of fair young girls, numbering some 
twenty or thirty. Those in one wore the chaste ornament of the wreath, and 
carried small flags in their hands which they waved incessantly, like so- 



14 

many goddesses of liberty. Those in the other vehicle could boast of some- 
what riper charms. They wore purple velvet hats, all of the same pattern, 
and as they passed, you would think their beauty would have entitled them 
to ride with the dark-browed Cleopatra in her golden barge upon the Nile. 
There besides, dashing equestriennes, who witched the young men with 
graceful horsemanship. Indeed, I question if any political meeting in the 
country has brought out more beautiful women or more of them than the 
meeting in Jacksonville, Monday. By subsequent inquiry, I learned that the 
place has long been famous for the charms of its female population. 



HOW DOUGLAS REACHED ILLINOIS. 

From a Speech at Winchester, Illinois, Aug, 7, 1858. 

"Twenty-five years ago, I entered this town on foot with my coat on my 
arm, without an acquaintance within a thousand miles and without having 
where I could get money to pay a week's board. Here I made the first six 
dollars I ever earned in my life, and obtained the first regular occupation 
that I ever pursued. For the first time in my life, I then felt that the 
responsibilities of manhood were upon me, although I was under age; for 
I had none to advise with, and knew no one upon whom I had a right to call 
for assistance or for friendship. Here I found the then settlers of the 
country my friends. My first start in life was taken here; not only as a 
private citizen, but my first election to public office by the people was 
conferred upon me by those whom I am now addressing, and by their fathers. 
A quarter of a century has passed, and that penniless boy stands before you 
with his heart full and gushing with the sentiments which such associations 
and recollections necessarily inspire." — Philadelphia North American, Aug. 
19, 1858. 



THE GREAT DEBATE. 
(From "The Crisis.") 

It was but a few minutes' walk to the grove where the speaking was to be. 
And as they made their way thither Mr. Lincoln passed them in a Conestoga 
wagon drawn by six milk-white horses. Jim informed Stephen that the 
Little Giant had had a six-horse coach. The grove was black with people. 
Hovering about the hem of the crowd were the sunburned young men in 
their Sunday best, still clinging fast to the hands of the young women. 
Bands blared "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean." Fakers planted their stands 
in the way, selling pain-killers and ague cures, watermelons and lemonade. 
Jugglers juggled, and beggars begged. Jim said that there were sixteen 
thousand people in that grove. And he told the truth. 

******* 

In the midst of that heaving human sea rose the bulwarks of a wooden 
stand. As they drew near their haven, a great surging as of a tidal wave 
swept them off their feet. There was a deafening shout, and the stand 
rocked on its foundations. Before . Stephen could collect his wits, a fierce 
battle was raging about him. Abolitionist and democrat, free soiler and 
squatter sov, defaced one another in a rush for the platform. The com- 
mitteemen and reporters on top of it rose to its defence. Well for Stephen 
that his companion was along. Jim was recognized and hauled bodily into 
the fort, and Stephen after him. The populace were driven off, and when 
the excitement died down again, he found himself in the row behind the 
reporters. Young Mr. Hitt* paused while sharpening his pencil to wave 
him a friendly greeting. 

Stephen, craning in his seat, caught sight of Mr. Lincoln slouched into 
one of his favorite attitudes, his chin resting in his hand. 



* Robert R. Hitt a reporter for the Chicago Press and Tribune. 



15 

But who is this, erect, aggressive, searching with a confident eye the 
wilderness of upturned faces? A personage, truly, to be questioned timidly, 
to be approached advisedly. Here indeed was a lion, by the very look of him, 
master of himself and of others. By reason of its regularity and masculine 
strength, a handsome face. A man of the world to the cut of the coat 
across the broad shoulders. Here was one to lift a youngster into the 
realm of emulation, like a character in a play to arouse dreams of "Wash- 
ington and its senators and great men. For this was one to be consulted 
by the great alone. A figure of dignity and power, with magnetism to 
compel moods. Since, when he smiled, you warmed in spite of yourself, 
and when he frowned the world looked grave-. 

The inevitable comparison was come, and Stephen's hero was shrunk 
once more. He drew a deep breath, searched for the word, and gulped. 
There was but the one word. How country Abraham Lincoln looked beside 
Stephen Arnold Douglas! 

Had the Lord ever before made and set over against each other two 

such different men? Yes, for such are the ways of the Lord. 

******* 

There was a hush, and the waves of that vast human sea were stilled. A 
man — lean, angular, with coat tails flapping — unfolded like a grotesque 
figure at a side-show. No confidence was there. Stooping forward, Abraham 
Lincoln began to speak, and Stephen Brice hung his head, and shuddered. 
Could this shrill falsetto be the same voice to which he had listened only 
that morning? Could this awkward, yellow man with his hands behind 
his back be he whom he had worshipped? Ripples of derisive laughter rose 
here and there, on the stand and from the crowd. Thrice distilled was 
the agony of those moments! 

But what was this feeling that gradually crept over him? Surprise? 
Cautiously he raised his eyes. The hands were coming round to the front. 
Suddenly one of them was thrown sharply back, with a determined gesture, 
the head was raised, — and — and his shame was forgotten. In its stead 
wonder was come. But soon he lost even that, for his mind was gone on 
a journey. And when again he came to himself and looked upon Abraham 
Lincoln, this was a man transformed. The voice was no longer shrill. Nay, 
it was now a powerful instrument which played strangely on those who heard. 
Now it rose, and again it fell into tones so low as to start a stir which spread 
and spread, like a ripple in a pond, until it broke on the very edge of that 
vast audience. 

That short hour came all too quickly to an end. And as the Moderator 
gave the signal for Mr. Lincoln, it was Stephen's big companion who 
snapped the strain, and voiced the sentiment of those about him. 

Standing up, the very person of the Little Giant was contradictory, as 
was the man himself. His height was insignificant. But he had the head 
and shoulders of a lion, and even the lion's roar. What a contrast the ring 
of his deep bass to the tentative falsetto of Mr. Lincoln's opening words! 
If Stephen expected the judge to tremble, he was greatly disappointed. Mr. 
Douglas was far from dismay. 

******* 

It only remains to be told how Stephen Brice, coming to the Brewster 
House after the debate, found Mr. Lincoln. On his knee, in transports of 
delight, was a small boy, and Mr. Lincoln was serenely playing on the 
child's Jew's-harp. Standing beside him was a proud father who had 
dragged his son across two counties in a farm wagon, and who was to 
return on the morrow to enter this event in the family Bible. 

******* 

This Lincoln of the black loam, who built his neighbor's cabin and hoed 
his neighbor's corn, who had been storekeeper and postmaster and flat- 
boatman. Who had followed a rough judge dealing a rough justice around 
a rough circuit; who had rolled a local bully in the dirt; rescued women 
from insult; tended the bedside of many a sick coward who feared the 
judgment; told coarse stories on barrels by candlelight (but these are pure 



i6 

beside the vice of great cities); who addressed political mobs in the raw, 
swooping down from the stump and flinging embroilers east and west. 
This physician who was one day to tend the sick bed of the Nation in her 
agony; whose large hand was to be on her feeble pulse, and whose knowledge 
almost divine was to perform the miracle of her healing. So was it that 
the physician himself performed his cures, and when his work was done, 
died a martyr. 

Abraham Lincoln died in His Name. — From Mr. Winston Churchill's 
novel, "The Crisis," copyright, 1901, by The Macmillan Company. 



THE DEBATE AND THE DEBATERS, 

BY COL. CLARK E. CARR. 

"Yet, while the Republicans instinctively turned to Mr. Lincoln in this 
emergency, they still had misgivings as to whether he was equal to the task 
of meeting Douglas. Curiously, even yet very few in Illinois had come to 
regard Mr. Lincoln as what we call a great man. How could so homely, 
plain, simple, unpretentious, and droll a man be great, He was simply one 
of the common people; that was all." 

Outside of Illinois, Mr. Lincoln was then but little known. Less than a 
year before the Lincoln and Douglas debates, he spent a week at Cincinnati 
trying a lawsuit in company with Edwin M. Stanton, afterwards the great 
war secretary during the rebellion. Reverdy Johnson was the attorney on 
the other side of the case. These two great men, Stanton and Johnson, 
were well known. Lincoln was not; he stayed in Cincinnati a week, moving 
freely about, yet not twenty men knew him personally, and not a hundred 
would have known who he was had his name been spoken. Mr. Stanton 
afterwards described him, from his impressions of that first meeting, as 
"a long, lank creature from Illinois, wearing a dirty linen duster for a coat, 
the back of which the perspiration had splotched with stains that resembled 
a map of the continent." 

******* 

"The people of Illinois were interested from the first. Soon the debates 
began to attract attention beyond the limits of the State. People in other 
sections asked, "who is the man Lincoln?" and wondered that they had not 
known something of him before. As the interest augmented, newspapers 
both east and west took up the speeches and published them in full. 
Their readers awaited their publications with eagerness and read them with 
avidity, and men on either side made their arguments their own. In every 
home, on every farm, in every tavern, store shop and mill, from New York 
to San Francisco, the statements and arguments were repeated and dis- 
cussed. "Did you see how Lincoln turned the tables on the 'Little Giant' with 
the 'Dred Scott decision?' asked one. 'Read' it! read it aloud!' was the re- 
sponse. "See how Douglas answered him!" cried another; "read that!" and 
it was read. "The 'Little Giant' is too much for your Springfield lawyer!" 
said one. "The 'Little Giant' has finally found his match!" another man 
responded. "It's all very well for Lincoln to talk his abolition sentiments 
in northern Illinois," said the Douglas men, after the Ottawa and Freeport 
debates. "You just wait until the 'Little Giant' trots him down into Egypt, 
and you'll laugh out of the other side of your mouth!" 

******* 

"It was curious to look into the faces of the people who assembled to hear 
Lincoln ond Douglas in these famous debates. The debates were held in open 
air; and, unlike ordinary political meetings, both sides were fully represented. 
This fact, more than anything else, had prompted Mr. Lincoln to challenge 
the senator to meet him face to face. 'I want to reach the democrats,' he 
said to his friends. They are so prejudiced that they will not attend a re- 
publican meeting; but they will all come out to hear Douglas and this will 
give me a chance at them." 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Pure was thy life ; its bloody close 

Has placed thee with the sons of light, 

Among the noblest host of those 

Who perished in the cause of right. 

— 11'. 0. Br .mint. 

We rest in peace, where his sad eyes 

Saw peril, strife, and pain. 
His was an awful sacrifice. 

And ours a precious gain. 

— Whittier. 



17 

As has been said, neither party spared either pains or expense to have 
its side represented in the most effective manner. The date of each joint 
debate was fixed long before it occurred and each party sought to make a 
more imposing demonstration in numbers and equipments than the other 
Meetings were held by each party in advance, at every cross roads within a 
radius of fifty miles of the place where a joint debate was to occur, in order to 
awaken its adherents to the importance of being present to encourage and 
support its champion. They organized themselves into great delegations 
which rallied at convenient points and formed in processions of men and 
women, in wagons and carriages and on horseback, and, headed by bands of 
music, with flags flying and hats and handkerchiefs waving, proceeded to the 
place of meeting. Many of these processions were more than a mile in 
length. As they marched, the air was rent with cheers — in the republican 
procession for "Honest Old Abe," and in the democratic for "The Little 
Giant." The sentiments printed in great letters upon the banners carried 
in each of these processions left no one in doubt which party it belonged to. 
Upon the banners of the Douglas processions were such sentiments as 
"Squatter Sovereignty." 

"Popular Sovereignty!" "Let the people rule!" "This is a white man's 
government!" "No nigger equality!" "Hurrah for the Little Giant!" The 
republican processions, on the other hand, carried banners with such 
mottoes as "Hurrah for honest old Abe!" "Lincoln the rail-splitter!" and 
"Giant Killer!" "No more slave territory!" "All men are created equal!" 
"Free Kansas!" "No more compromise!" 

******* 

Each party had great wagons or chariots specially fitted up, drawn by 
four, eight, and sometimes twenty horses, bearing y#ung ladies each repre- 
senting one of the States of the Union. In the republican processions one of 
these young ladies was usually dressed in mourning, to represent Kansas. 
Over the young ladies in a Douglas chariot was displayed a banner bearing 
the sentiment, "Fathers protect us from negro husbands." As the processions 
came into town, they were met by marshals of their respective parties, on 
horseback, and conducted to their meeting places, greeted, as they passed 
through the streets, by cheers from their own parties and jeers from their 
opponents, which were answered in the same spirit. Finally they all as- 
sembled before the grand stand; seats could be provided for comparatively 
few, and the most of the people were standing. Democrats and republicans 
were packed into a solid mass together, good-naturedly talking and chaffing 
each other. Upon the stage were seated prominent men of both parties. 
A chairman and secretary, and time-keepers who had previously been agreed 
upon, were early in their seats, but made no effort to restrain the great crowd 
until after the speakers had arrived and received the deafening applause 
of their followers. 

It was a curious sight when the contestants ascended to their places on the 
platform — Lincoln was so tall and Douglas so short, Lincoln so angular and 
Douglas so sturdy, Lincoln so spare and Douglas so compact and rotund. 
They alternated in opening and closing the debates — the opening speaker 
an hour, his competitor following with an hour and a half, and the opening 
speaker closing with half an hour. Every moment of time was important 
to each speaker. The debate opened at precisely the moment fixed upon, and 
the moment a speaker's time expired he was called by the time keepers, after 
which he could only finish the sentence he had begun. 

(Col. Clark E. Carr in "The Illini," by permission of A. C. McClurg & Co., 
Chicago.) 



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19 

he lived in Illinois. He was on his way to congress. Long years after this, 
when the young man had scars on his political armor, made in contest with 
the giants of those days, and when he was in the race for the white house 
wreath and the press of the opposition was vindictive in its attacks upon 
him. Douglas stopped on his return from Washington to visit his mother, who 
had in the meantime moved up near the Canadian border. The wagon roads 
were filled with the plain people of that section who assembled at the 
station to meet the presidential candidate. An old woman threw her arms 
about the neck of her boy in the presence of the multitude and cried out: 
"Ah, they do not know my boy as I do, or they would not say what they do 
about him," referring to the attacks of the opposition. And the son, forget- 
ting for the moment that he was in a presidential contest, embraced the old 
lady and responded in the hearing of the concourse, "Thank God, I have 
found my mother." 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 

BY SAMUEL P. ORTH. 

His father was a skilful physician, and his mother a woman of unusual 
mental prowess. The father died when Stephen was only two months old. 
A bachelor brother of the widow provided a home for them. Stephen 
attended the village school and grew into a reckless little dare-devil, who 
would swim the mill-pond to spite his teacher and pommel his playmates 
for sheer love of combat. He was a bright boy with his books, and wished 
to go to college. But his uncle was "close," and instead of going to college 
Stephen, at the age of fifteen, was apprenticed to a cabinet maker in Middle- 
bury. His master was a good-natured deacon, who allowed the apprentice 
boy time to read his favorite books, the lives of Napoleon and of Caesar 
and of Alexander, heroes whose traditions he wove into every phase of his 
own career. In truth he was the Little Napoleon of the village. He led the 
young people in combat and debate. The prophecy of his babyhood that 
he would grow into a great giant remained unfulfilled. He became the 
"Little Giant" instead, scarcely five feet in height, and while he weighed, 
tradition says, 14 pounds when he was born, he could scarcely summon 140 
pounds when he developed into manhood. Nor was his health robust. 
Throughout his early life he was compelled to suffer bodily discomforts. 
But Stephen in spite of his pigmy stature and frail health was remarkably 
muscular and fond of a fight. 

* * * * :■: * * 

His muscular strength was phenomenal. The pygmy who was often held 
upon the knees of his clients or constituents, as they familiarly consulted 
with him, was as powerful as an ox. One day when boarding a Mississippi 
flat-boat he was annoyed by a great, brawling, rawboned braggart. "Who 
are you, my big chicken?" Douglas asked. "I am a high pressure steamer," 
the bully answered. "And I am a snag," said the judge as he picked up the 

fellow and pitched him into the mud. 

* * * * * * * 

In spite of his diminutive stature, he was handsome in appearance. His 
head was massive and covered with a magnificent shock of jet black hair, 
which he tossed back when speaking, with a kingly gesture. His features 
were large and well proportioned. His eyes were restless, nothing escaped 
their vigilance as they flitted from object to object, and when they fixed 
their gaze they were piercing. His voice was superbly adapted to the needs 
of outdoor speaking. When on the platform, or in the court room, his 
manner was bold and challenging. He never evaded a conflict. It was this 
leonine attitude, together with his tremendous powers of speech and his 
stunted height, that christened him early in his career as "The Little Giant." 
— Samuel P. Orth in "Five Great Americans" (by permission of Burrows 
Brothers.) 



20 

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 

BY JOSEPH A. WALLACE, ESQ. 

(From The State Register, Springfield, Ills., April 19, 1885.) 
The person of Mr. Douglas has been often described. He was short and 
thick-set, being only five feet one inch in height. In his earlier life he was 
slender, but grew stouter as he grew older. His head was one of unusual 
size, and was covered with a thick mass of dark brown hair, inclined to 
curl and sprinkled with grey. His forehead was broad and full, rather 
than high; his face round and smoothly shaven, and his complexion a rich 
dark color. His eyes were large and of a darkish blue, and deeply set be- 
neath heavy eyebrows. His nose was thick and pugnacious; mouth wide 
and firmly set, and a chin oval and dimpled. He had a short neck, square 
shoulders, disproportionately short lower limbs, small, chubby hands and 
small feet. He generally dressed with neatness, though not always in 
good taste. The ensemble of his person was such that he could not be taken 
for the "glass of fashion or the mould of form;" but when standing on a 
platform, before an audience, he loked like an orator and a great man, as 
he really was. He was well styled the "Little Giant." 

In private and social intercourse, he was a person of the most engaging 
address and conversation. Indeed, his glittering success as a politician was 
due almost as much to the charm of his manners as to the superiority of 
his intellect. He captured the hearts of the masses, and led them as it were 
spellbound. "No one," says Judge Trumbull," ever gathered around more 
devoted followers, or more enthusiastic admirers, who were willing to do 
and dare more for another than were his friends for him." 

As a public speaker "he seemed to disdain ornament, and marched right 
on against the body of his subject with irresistible power and directness." 
His style was declamatory, and he always spoke under the influence of 
strong emotion. His voice was one of unusual compass, not musical nor 
capable of a great variety of inflections, but deep and full, and "swelling 
into occasional clarion blasts toward the close of an important period." 
He made no pretensions to the character of a wit, yet some of his terse 
sayings have the genuine Attic flavor." 



NASBY'S DESCRIPTION OF LINCOLN. 

The first time I saw the great and good Lincoln (alas! that "great" and 
"good" cannot be more frequently associated in speaking of public men) 
was at Quincy, 111., in October — I think it was — 1858. It was at the close 
of the greatest political struggle this country ever witnessed. Stephen A. 
Douglas was the acknowledged champion of the democratic party, a position 
he had held unquestioned for years. He came into his heritage of leader- 
ship at an unfortunate time, just when the scepter was departing from the 
organization which he had headed, but he was especially unfortunate in 
being pitted against the most honest statesman in the opposition, a man upon 
whose face the Creator had set the assurance of absolute, unselfish integrity 
— of one whose outward seeming was a true index of the inward man. 
Douglas was perhaps as honest as politicians usually are; he had doubtless 
worked himself up to the point of actually believing the lies which he had 
fashioned to subserve his own ends; but Lincoln had never so deceived 
himself. He was absolutely honest — honest all the way through — and in 
face and manner satisfied all men that he was so. What might happen to 
him never influenced either his advocacy or opposition of any measure that 
might come before the people. 

I found Mr. Lincoln in a room of a hotel, surrounded by admirers, who 
had made the discovery that one who had previously been considered merely 
a curious compound of genius and simplicity was a really great man. When 
Lincoln was put forward as the antagonist of the hitherto invincible Douglas, 
it was with fear and trembling, with the expectancy of defeat; but this 



21 

mature David of the new faith had met the Goliath of the old, and had 
practically slain him. He had swept over the state like a cyclone — not a 
raging, devastating cyclone, the noise of which equaled its destructive power, 
hut a modest and unassuming force, which was the more powerful because 
the force could not be seen. It was the cause which won, but in other 
hands than Lincoln's it might have failed. Therefore, wherever he went 
crowds of admiring men followed him, all eager to worship at the new 
shrine around which such glories were gathering. • 

I succeeded in obtaining an interview with him after the crowd had de- 
parted, and I esteem it something to be proud of that he seemed to take 
a liking to me. He talked to me without reserve. It was many years ago, 
but I shall never forget it. 

He sat in the room with his boots off, to relieve his very large feet from 
the pain occasioned by continuous standing; or, to put it in his own words: 
"I like to give my feet a chance to breathe." He had removed his coat and 
vest, dropped one suspender from his shoulder, taken off his necktie and 
collar, and thus comfortably attired, or rather unattired, he sat tilted back 
in one chair with his feet upon another in perfect ease. He seemed to dis- 
like clothing, and in privacy wore as little of it as he could. I remember 
the picture as though I saw it but yesterday. 

Those who accuse Lincoln of frivolity never knew him. I never saw a 
more thoughtful face, I never saw a more dignified face, I never saw so 
sad a face. He had humor of which he was totally unconscious, but it was 
not frivolity. He said wonderfully witty things, but never from a desire 
to be witty. His wit was entirely illustrative. He used it because, and 
only because, at times he could say more in this way, and better illustrate 
the idea with which he was pregnant. He never cared how he made a 
point so that he made it, and he never told a story for the mere sake of 
telling a story. When he did it, it was for the purpose of illustrating and 
making clear a point. He was essentially epigrammatic and parabolic. He 
was a master of satire, which was at times as blunt as a meat-ax, and at 
others as keen as a razor; but it was always kindly except when some 
horrible injustice was its inspiration, and then it was terrible. Weakness 
he was never ferocious with, but intentional wickedness he never spared. — 
David B. Locke ("Petroleum V. Nasby") in Reminiscences of Abraham 
Lincoln, (by permission of North American Pub. Co.) 



CASSIUS M. CLAY ON LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS. 

His debate with Stephen A. Douglas not only showed great ability, but a 
liberal tendency. And though Douglas was the first popular speaker of 
his day, Lincoln won on the convictions of the people; so that, although 
Douglas was chosen the senator of Illinois, the debate, as taken down by 
stenographers, was published by the Whigs, and widely distributed as a 
campaign document. This brought Lincoln prominently before the nation 
as the liberal candidate. He was invited to speak in New York by the 
young Whigs and Liberals, and I met him again for the second time, and 
had on the cars a long talk with him on my favorite policy. Lincoln as 
usual was a good listener; and when I had accumulated all my arguments 
in favor of liberation he said: "Clay, I always thought that the man who 
made the corn should eat the corn." This homely illustration of his senti- 
ments has lingered ever in my memory as one of the most eminent argu- 
ments against slavery. — Cassius M. Clay in .Reminiscences of Abraham Lin- 
coln (by permission of North American Publishing Co.) 



22 
THE CONTRAST BETWEEN LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS. 

. BY GEN. JAMES B. FEY. 

Lincoln and his Illinois competitor, Stephen A. Douglas, formed a striking 
contrast. Douglas was low in stature, rotund in figure, with a short neck, 
a big bullet head, and a chubby face. His lips were forced into the fixed 
smile characteristic of the popular and well-satisfied public man of a period 
when political success depended largely upon what a man said, how he said 
it, and how he appeared in personal intercourse with the people; and not, 
as now, much upon what newspapers say of him and for him. 

Lincoln was tall and thin; his long bones were united by large joints, 
and he had a long neck and an angular face and head. Many likenesses 
represent his face well enough, but none that I have ever seen do justice 
to the awkwardness and ungainliness of his figure. His feet, hanging 
loosely to his ankles, were prominent objects; but his hands were more 
conspicuous even than his feet — due perhaps to the fact that ceremony at 
times compelled him to clothe them in white kid gloves, which always fitted 
loosely. Both in the height of conversation and in the depth of reflection 
his hand now and then ran over or supported his head, giving his hair 
habitually a disordered aspect. I never saw him when he appeared to 
me otherwise than a great man, and a very ugly one. His expression in 
repose was sad and dull; but with ever-recurring humor, at short intervals, 
flashed forth with the brilliancy of an electric light. I observed but two 
well-defined expressions in his countenance; one, that of a pure, thoughtful, 
honest man, absorbed by a sense of duty and responsibility; the other, that 
of a humorist so full of fun that he could not keep it all in. His power of 
analysis was wonderful. He strengthened every case he stated, and no 
anecdote or joke ever lost force or effect from his telling. He invariably 
carried the listener with him to the very climax, and when that was reached 
in relating a humorous story, he laughed all over. His large mouth assumed 
an unexpected and comical shape, the skin on his nose gathered into wrinkles, 
and his small eyes, though partly closed, emitted infectious rays of fun. It 
was not only the aptness of his stories, but his way of telling them, and 
his own unfeigned enjoyment, that gave them zest, even among the gravest 
men and upon the most serious occasions. — Gen. James B. Fry in Re- 
miniscences of Abraham Lincoln, (permission of the North American Pub- 
lishing Co.) 



DOUGLAS AND LINCOLN. 

BY STEPHEN B. WARDEN. 

Here are two men, of whom one is great and both are true as well as 
able. Lincoln represents, not greatly, but with marked ability, the least 
objectionable form of republicanism. Douglas represents, and greatly, the 
most patriotic form of democracy. Lincoln magnifies the interests of keep- 
ing territories now free in that condition, slightly estimating, or forgetting 
to preserve intact, the principle without which freedom in the territories 
or elsewhere would be a sheer impossibility. Douglas magnifying nothing, 
nor depreciating aught devotes himself to the elucidation and the preserva- 
tion of the principle on which all real republican or democratic interests 
must always be dependent. — Warden Stephen B. A voter's version of the 
life and character of Stephen Arnold Douglas. (Columbus, Ohio, 1860.) 



THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES. 

BY ALONZO ROTHSCHILD. 

The political careers of these two men started at about the same time and 
place. When Lincoln entered upon his first term in the Illinois Assembly 
at Vandalia, he met in the lobby a shrewd little Vermonter, four years his 



23 

junior, who, notwithstanding extreme youth and briefness of residence in 
the West, was conducting among the members of the legislature what proved 
to be a successful canvass for the office of state's attorney for the first 
judicial district. The newcomer was Stephen A. Douglas. Identifying him- 
self with the dominant party, he became as pronounced in his democracy 
as Lincoln was in his Whiggism. On opposite sides of the next assembly, — 
both of them were elected to the legislature of 1836, — they clashed, from 
time to time, in tactics and debate. The antagonism thus started in Vandalia 
was transferred the following year to Springfield, where within a few months 
of each other, the young men took up their residence. Here differences in 
character and temperament rather than in party affiliations, acted as a bar 
to the friendship, or even to the esteem, that is not uncommon between con- 
tending politicians. If Douglas took one side of a question, Lincoln might 
safely be looked for on the other; and their rivalry soon became a recognized 

factor in the spirited local contests of the day. 

* * * * * * * 

The Lincoln-Douglas debates, as they are called, were the most remarkable 
exhibitions of their kind in the history of the country. Never before nor 
since have two of its citizens engaged in a series of public discussions which 
involved questions of equal importance. Personal and purely local differ- 
ences were overshadowed, from the very beginning, by what the disputants 
had to say on issues so momentous that they were destined, within a few 
years, to plunge the country into civil war. Lincoln, accordingly, did not 
greatly exaggerate when he spoke, at Quincy, of the seven meetings as "the 
successive acts of a drama to be enacted not merely in the face of audiences 
like this, but in the face of the nation and ,to some, extent, in the face of 
the world." To reconstruct these stirring scenes, in pen pictures, almost 
half a century after the curtain was rung down, is as much beyond our 
power as to do justice by the actors, in any summary of their speeches. 
Only a careful reading of the 263 pages in which the debates have been 
preserved will convey an adequate idea of how brilliantly, from the intel- 
lectual point of view, both conducted themselves. Now Douglas appears to 
prevail, now Lincoln. One page persuades us that slavery is constitutional, 
and that each commonwealth should be allowed to have "the institution," 
or not, as it elects. We turn the leaf, and lo! we are convinced that slavery 
is wrong, and ought, at least, to be restricted. The questions at issue in 
the debates, however, — their morals and their politics, — lie beyond the scope 
of our present inquiry. — Rothschild, Alonzo. Lincoln, Master of Men. (By 
permission of Houghton, Mifflin cC- Co.) 



THE GREAT DEBATE. 

BY SAMUEL P. ORTH. 

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas were old time rivals. They 
had been admitted to the bar together, they had competed for political favor 
in the same communities, they had practiced law in the same courts on the 
same circuits, they had been rivals for the hand of the same maiden, and 
had been opponents in every political struggle since the days of Jackson. 
Douglas had become famous, Lincoln had remained obscure; Douglas was the 
leader of a great national party, Lincoln was the local organizer of a new 
and untried party; Douglas was the proud creator of the policy of popular 
sovereignty, not caring "whether the people voted slavery up or voted it 
down," Lincoln was the humble commentator on the text of the great declar- 
tion that "all men are created free and equal." 

Now these rivals met in a contest that was destined to become one of the 
great and glorious events in our national history. It was not a rivalry of 
persons but of principles. Compromise and conviction met upon the same 
platform and struggled for the mastery. All semblance of a local contest 
immediately vanished, and the eyes of the nation were upon the rivals; their 
every word was caught up by eager ears, and every paper detailed their 
speech and action. Illinois became the political and moral battleground of all 
the land. 



The rivals were opposites, not alone in political convictions, but in methods, 
in physiognomy, in mental trait and in moral conceptions. Providence des- 
tined each to be the perfect embodiment of a principle, and nature had pre- 
pared each man for his ideal. Douglas, undersized, well knit and erect, his 
handsome head well poised, graceful of gesture and lordly of mein; Lin- 
coln, tall, gaunt, losely put together, awkward, called himself "the homliest 
man in Illinois." Douglas magnetic beyond resistance, prepossessing, good- 
natured, impulsive; Lincoln humble, straightforward, retiring, uncomplain- 
ing. Douglas a master of sophistry and fallacy, resorting to tricks and 
illusions, doing everything to win; Lincoln utterly incapable of deception, 
and so permeated with the truth that he feared misrepresentation more than 
defeat. Douglas in speech utterly destitute of wit, or of figure, he never 
quoted; neither did he hesitate, but his volubility was as unfailing as the 
rushing waters of a mountain torrent. His mastery over the audience was 
due to this irresistible onrush of words, and to his power to hide the real 
issue, to magnify small points into the ludicrous, to create whole platoons of 
straw men out of mere phrases from his opponents' speech, and then pro- 
ceed to demolish them, with stupendous gusto, to the huge delight of his 
hearers. Douglas was superficial. He never fathomed the meaning of the 
Dred Scott decision; he was artificial, he never thought through the history of 
our country. What a contrast to Lincoln, who was nothing if not genuine, 
who was so profound, that his speeches will remain a perennial well-spring of 
civic and moral wisdom: And in speech, what a contrast! Lincoln was 
slow; his words were all carefully measured before they were spoken. He 
possessed the humor of Aesop, the wisdom of Franklin, the imagery of Burns, 
the diction of Emerson, the learning of Bacon, the morality of Paul. Douglas 
voluble, deceptive, onrushing; Lincoln logical, truthful, deliberative. These 
rivals, opposite in temperament and in method and in purpose, met in the 
arena of debate and crystallized the political sentiment of the Union. 

******* 

If these rivals could appear in joint discussion, Douglas would have to 
meet Lincoln upon an equality. His silent contempt and assumed superior- 
ity would be neutralized and his language tempered by the presence of Lin- 
coln. Douglas agreed to the debate. Seven meetings were arranged for, in 
as many towns, each speaker alternately to open and close, the opening 
speech to occupy an hour, the reply one hour and a half, Che rejoinder one 
half hour. Douglas chose to open four debates, leaving Lincoln only three, 
but he submitted to this inequality with his usual good nature. 

Seven Illinois towns were made historic by these meetings. Not one 
external circumstance that could add significance to these occasions was 
wanting. For thirty miles around, the country emptied itself into each, 
town. The multitudes came on foot, in wagons, by the train load. They 
camped in the open fields to await the great day. They marched, they sang, 
tney drank and made merry. Bands, torches, fireworks and banners made 
bizarre these encounters of the giants. The multitudes came in glee, they 
departed in silence; they gathered in jubilant excitement, they returned to 
Cheir homes in sober thought; for Lincoln lived up to his simple purpose, 
"I want to convince the people." Douglas captivated the people, Lincoln 
sobered them. Douglas persisted in amplifying the ostensible assumptions 
of Lincoln; the answer was invariably the simple, convincing logic. Doug- 
las's speeches were turgid with misleading insinuations; Lincoln's answers 
were pregnant with prophecy. 

The campaign of enthusiasm closed with a mammoth rally, held in Chicago 
the night before election. Through rain and mud, the republicans marched 
in an enormous torchlight parade, so popular in those days; while the dem- 
ocrats gathered in a half dozen large meetings, where they awaited patiently 
in the rain, the arrival of Douglas, who addressed each meeting. Douglas 
had made a fortune in Chicago real estate, and his campaign cost him forty 
thousand dollars. Lincoln, out of his poverty, could give little more than his 
personal expenses. He confided to a friend that the campaign had cost him 
"nigh unto five hundred dollars." — Orth, Samvel P., Five American Politi- 
cians. (By permission of Burrow Bros., Cleveland. Ohio.) 



25 

AS AN EASTERN NEWSPAPER REPORTER SAW THEM. 

A writer for the New York Evening Post, who was present at the Ottawa 
debate and who listened for the first time to the two champions, gives his im- 
pression of them in the following manner: 

Douglas and Lincoln. 

Two men presenting wider contrasts could hardly be found as the repre- 
sentatives of the two great parties. Everybody knows Douglas, a short, thick- 
set burly man, with large round head, heavy hair, dark complexion, and fierce 
bull-dog look. Strong in his own real power, and skilled by a thousand con- 
flicts in all the strategy of a hand to hand or a general fight; of towering am- 
bition, restless in his determined desire for noteriety; proud, defiant, ar- 
rogant, audacious, unscrupulous, "Little Dug," ascended the platform and 
looked out impudently and carelessly on the immense throng which surged 
and struggled before him. A native of Vermont, reared on a soil where no 
slaves stood, came to Illinois as a teacher, and from one post to another had 
risen to his present eminence. Forgetful of the ancestral hatred of slavery 
to which he was the heir, he had come to be a holder of slaves and to owe 
much of his fame to his continued subservience to southern influence. 

The other — Lincoln — is a native of Kentucky, of poor white parentage: 
and from his cradle has felt the blighting influence of the poor and cruel 
shadow which rendered labor dishonorable, and kept the poor in poverty, 
while it advanced the rich in their possessions. Reared in poverty and to the 
humblest aspirations, he left his native State, crossed the line into Illinois 
and began his career' of honorable toil. At first a laborer, splitting rails 
for a living — deficient in education, and applying himself even to the rudi- 
ments of knowledge; he, too, felt the expanding power of his American 
manhood, and began to achieve the greatness to which he has succeeded. 
With great difficulty, struggling through the tedious formalities of legal 
lore, he was admitted to the bar, and rapidly made his way to the front rank 
of his profession. 

Honored by the people with office, he is still the same honest and reliable 
man. He volunteered in the Black Hawk war, and did the State good service 
in its sorest need. In every relation of life, socially and to the State, Mr. 
Lincoln has been always the pure and honest man. In physique he is the 
opposite to Douglas. Built on the Kentucky type, he is very tall, slender 
and angular, awkward even, in gait and attitude. His face is sharp, large- 
featured and unprepossessing. His eyes are deep set, under heavy brows: 
his forehead is high and retreating, and his hair is dark and heavy. In 
repose, I must confess that "Long Abe's" appearance is not comely. But 
stir him up and the fire of his genius plays on every feature. His eye glows 
and sparkles, every lineament now so ill-formed, grows brilliant and ex- 
pressive, and you have before you a man of rare power and of strong mag- 
netic influence. He takes the people every time, and there is no getting 
away from his sturdy good sense, his unaffected sincerity, and the unceasing 
play of his good humor, which accompanies his close logic and smooths 
the way to conviction — Neiv York Evening Post, Aug. 27, 1858. 

(Is this writer in error in any historical fact? Does he seem to try to be 
fair and impartial? Apply the test to other writers.) 



HOW DOUGLAS TRAVELED DURING THE CAMPAIGN. 

Labors of Senator Douglas — A western correspondent gives a detailed 
statistical account of the labors of Senator Douglas in the recent canvass of 
Illinois, from which it appears that they were almost equal to the labors of 
Hercules. It seems that he has addressed his constituents in 57 counties. 
He met Mr. Lincoln in debate once in each congressional district ; made 59 
set speeches of from two to three hours in length; 17 speeches of from 



26 

twenty to forty-five minutes in length, in response to the serenades; and 30 
speeches of about equal length, in reply to addresses of welcome. Of these 
speeches, all but two were made in the open air, and seven speeches were 
made or continued during heavy rains. To do this, Mr. Douglas crossed, from 
end to end, every railroad line in the State, excepting three, besides making 
long journeys by means of horse conveyance and steamboats; the road 
travel amounted to more than 5,227 miles. By boat he made almost the 
entire western side of the State, and all that portion of the Illinois river 
which is navigable by steamboats. — New York Times, 185S. 



AS DOUGLAS APPEARED AFTER THE CLOSE OF THE DEBATES. 

'As the great, though little, Douglas was stopping at the Tremont house, 
Chicago, only a few persons had the supreme honor of joining hands with the 
"favorite son," and your correspondent was among the number. He ap- 
peared in good health, quitely smoking a weed, and occasionally indulging 
in a chat with any one and every one who chose to converse with him. Per- 
haps 5'ou have never seen him; well, S. A. Douglas is a man standing five feet 
two or three, with a head big enough for six feet two, and a forehead prom- 
inent and intellectual enough for any man of any nation. His hair, which 
was brown, is thick and gray; his eye cool and gray; his nose not prominent, 
but striking; his mouth large and firm. His whole face is round, and seems 
too large even for such broad shoulders to support it. Small as he is, you 
would choose him out of a crowd for a splendid model of intellectual culti- 
vation. He is small only in body — his head is a miracle of mind." — Chicago 
correspondence of Louisville, Ky., Democrat, Nov. 23, 1853. 



SELECTIONS FROM THE DEBATES. 
(condensed.) 

Lincoln on Slavery — "I suppose the real difference between Judge Doug- 
las and his friends and the Republicans is that the judge is not in. favor of 
making any difference between slavery and liberty. Everything that emanates 
from him or his coadjutors in their course or policy carefully excludes the 
thought that there is anything wrong in slavery. If you will take the 
Judge's speeches and select the short and pointed sentences expressed by 
him — such as his declaration that be don't care whether slavery is voted up 
or down, you will see at once that this is perfectly logical. Judge Douglas 
declares that if any community wants slavery they have a right to have it. 
He can say that logically, if he says that there is no wrong in slavery; but 
if you admit that there is a wrong in it, he cannot logically say that anybody 
has a right to do wrong." 

Douglas on Slavery — "Mr. Lincoln says he looks forward to a time when 
slavery shall be abolished everywhere. I look forward to a time when each 
state shall be allowed to do as it pleases. If it chooses to keep slavery for- 
ever, is not my business, but its own; if it chooses to abolish slavery, it is 
its own business, not mine. I care more for the principle of just government, 
the right of the people to rule, than I do for all the negroes in Christendom. 
I would not endanger the perpetuity of the Union, I would not blot out the 
inalienable rights of the white man for all the negroes that ever existed." 

Lincoln on the Menace of Slavery — "We are now far into the fifth year 
since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and the confident promise 
of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, 
that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In 
my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and 
passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this govern- 
ment cannot endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to 
be dissolved; I. do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease 



27 

to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the op- 
ponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinc- 
tion, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in 
all the states, old as well as new, north as well as south." 

Douglas on Lincoln's Sectionalism — "His first and main proposition I will 
give in his own language, scriptural quotations and all: 'A house divided 
against itself cannot stand.' In other words, Mr. Lincoln asserts as a fund- 
amental principle of this government that there must be uniformity in the 
local laws and domestic institutions of each and all the States in the Union; 
and he therefore invites all the non-slaveholding States to band together, 
organize as one body and make war upon slavery in Kentucky, upon slavery 
in Virginia, upon the Carolinas, upon slavery in all the slaveholding states in 
this Union, and to persevere in that war until it is exterminated. He then 
notifies the slave-holding states to stand together as a unit and make an ag- 
gressive war on the free states of this Union with a view of establishing 
slavery in them all. 

Lincoln on the Dred Scott Decision — "The several points of the Dred Scott 
decision, in connection with Senator Douglas's 'care not' policy, constitute the 
piece of machinery in its present state of advancement. The working points 
of that machinery are: 

Firstly — That no negro slave and no descendant of a slave can ever be a 
citizen of any state. This point is made in order to deprive the negro of the 
benefit of that provision in the constitution which declares that "the citizens 
of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens 
of the several states." 

Secondly — That neither Congress nor a territorial legislature can exclude 
slavery from any United States territory. This point is made that in- 
dividual men may fill up a territory with slaves, without danger of losing 
them as property and thus enhance the chances of permanency to the institu- 
tion through all the future. 

Thirdly — That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a free 
state makes him free, the United States will not decide, but will leave to be 
decided by the courts of any slave state the negro may be forced into by his 
master. 

Put this and that together and we have another nice little niche, which 
we may ere long see filled with another Supreme Court decision declaring 
that the constitution does not permit a state to exclude slavery from its limits. 

Douglas on the Dred Scott Decision — "The decision of the highest tribunal 
known to the Constitution of the country must be final until it has been re- 
versed by an equally high authority. Hence, I am opposed to this doctrine 
of Mr. Lincoln by which he proposes to take an appeal from the decision 
of the Supreme Court upon this high constitutional question to a republican 
caucas sitting in the country. Yes, or any other caucus or town meeting 
whether it be republican, American or democratic. I respect the decisions 
of that august tribunal. I am a law-abiding man. 

I am free to say to you that in my opinion this government of ours was 
founded on a white basis. It was made by the white man, for the benefit 
of the white man, to be administered by the white man as they should deter- 
mine. I do not acknowledge that the states must all be free or must be all 
slave. I do not acknowledge that the negro must have civil and political 
rights everywhere or nowhere. He objects to the Dred Scott decision be- 
cause it does not put the negro in possession of the rights of citizenship on 
an equality with the white man. I am opposed to negro equality. I am in 
favor of preserving not only the purity of the blood but the purity of the 
government from any mixture or amalgation with inferior races." 

Lincoln on Douglas. — "Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the 
anxious politicians of his party, have been looking upon him as certainly, 
at no distant day, to be the president of the United States. They have seen 
in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, marshalships, and 
cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprout- 
ing out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy 



28 

hands. With greedy anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give 
him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions beyond what even in the 
days of his highest prosperity they could have brought about in his favor. 
On the contrary, nobody ever expected me to be president. In my poor, 
lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. 
These are advantages under which the Republicans labor. I was made 
the standard-bearer merely because there had to be some one so placed — I 
being in no wise preferable to any other of the twenty-five, perhaps a hun- 
dred, we have in the Republican ranks." 

Douglas on Lincoln. — "In the remarks I have made on this platform and 
the position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing personally disrespectful 
or unkind to that gentleman. I have known him for nearly twenty-five 
years. There were many points of sympathy between us when we first got 
acquainted. We were both comparatively poor boys, and both struggling with 
poverty in a strange land. I was a school-teacher in the town of Winchester, 
and he was a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. He was more 
successful in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate 
in this world's goods. Lincoln is one of these peculiar men who perform 
with admirable skill everything they undertake. I made as good a school- 
teacher as I could and when a cabinet-maker I made a good bedstead and 
tables although my old boss said I succeeded better with bureaus and secre- 
taries than with anything else; but I believe that Lincoln was always more 
successful in business than I, for his business enabled him to get into the 
legislature. I met him there, however, and had a sympathy with him, be- 
cause of the up-hill struggle we both had in life. He was then just as good 
at telling an anecdote as now. He could beat any of the boys wrestling, or 
running a foot-race, in pitching quoits or tossing a copper; and the dignity 
and impartiality with which he presided at a horse-race or fist-fight excited 
the admiration and won the praise of everybody that was present and par- 
ticipated. I sympathized with him because he was struggling with difficul- 
ties and so was I." 



LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS AT FREEPORT, 
A Dialogue foe Boys. 

Characters: Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, two moderators, three 
reporters, and five or six political friends of each candidate. 

Scene — The stage should be set to represent an outdoor platform, with a 
plain uncovered table and with chairs as indicated in the diagram below. 
On the table, should be a pitcher of water and a glass, with two or three 
sheep-bound books. Two small tables for the reporters should be placed on 
the side of the stage furthest from the entrance. If desired a banner may 
be shown with the inscription "Stephenson is for Old Abe" and another 
"hurrah for the Little Giant." Also, if desired, the characters may march 
on the stage in procession with fife and drums ahead, Douglas and Lincoln 
marching behind the moderators, the shouters for each following with cheers, 
and two of the reporters coming last. The third reporter remains outside 
until called for. 



STAGE SETTING. 
Audience. 



Reporters 



Table 

Douglas Lincoln 

* * 

Moderators 

* * 

Douglas shouters Lincoln shouters 

****** ****** 



29 

Cheers for each candidate should be given freely, with tossing of hats 
and waving of banners, before the beginning of each speech as well as after 
each speech. This should continue while candidates and moderators are 
taking their places, and subside only when the moderator has rapped sharply 
for order. The reporters cross to their tables and take notes constantly 
during the speaking, looking up only when interruptions come. 

Republican Moderator (Hon. Thos. J. Turner) : "Ladies and Gentlemen — " 

[The shouters have not yet taken their seats but are arguing with each 
other in the background. Now they cry, ''Order! Silencer and gradually 
take seats in their respective sides. The moderator waits until they are 
silent.] 

Moderator: "Ladies and Gentlemen. If the committee in charge of the 
arrangements for this memorable occasion could have been consulted, they 
would have planned better weather than greets us here today. But although 
the skies are lowering and the rain occasionally threatening, I hope we 
shall all be patient and as comfortable as possible in this grove and listen 
to the eminent gentlemen who are to address us today. As the great crowds 
came in this forenoon in wagons and on special trains of as many as sixteen 
cars, and as I saw the long processions which escorted these two candidates 
to this grove, I asked myself, 'Under what other government would such a 
spectacle be seen? In what other part of this great country would these 
thousands of people leave their work in the midst of the busy season and 
travel miles and miles to hear discussed the political issues of the day?' 
Why? Because this is a most momentous campaign. It will be regarded 
in history as a canvass unequalled in the election of United States senators. 
These two men represent the great contest now being waged among thought- 
ful men of the republic and there is much more at stake than the election 
of either man to the senate. According to the agreement made in writing 
between Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lincoln before these debates began, each is 
alternately to open the debate in a speech of one hour. The other is to 
have an hour and a half in which to make a reply. The first speaker is 
then to be allowed half an hour in which to close the debate. The first of 
the series was held at Ottawa, in the Third Congressional District last 
Saturday. Today they are to have the second of the seven fixed debates 
in this, the First Congressional District. I ask that each side give the 
other a fair hearing and that the best of order be preserved in this vast 
crowd. Mr. Douglas had the opening speech at Ottawa. Mr. Lincoln has 
•it today and it affords me great pleasure to introduce to the republicans of 
northern Illinois the champion of their principles and their candidate for 
the United States Senate — the Honorable Abraham Lincoln, of Springfield, 
who will open the debate." [Cheers.] 

[Moderator takes out his watch to keep time and resumes his seat. Lincoln 
arises amidst shouts and cheers of the Lincoln men on the stage. Comes 
slowly forward to a position beside the table, and takes a sip of water.] 

Lincoln: "Ladies and gentlemen" — 

[Cries of "Order! Keep quiet!" from the Douglas men to the cheering 
Lincoln men.. .Quiet is restored.] 

Lincoln: "Before I begin speaking, I wish to inquire whether Mr. Hitt, 
the reporter is present." 

Republican Moderator [rising and coming forward to the back of the 
table] "Is Mr. Robert Hitt, the stenographer, in the crowd about the stand?" 

Mr. Hitt [appearing at the entrance to the hall if the stage has no setting 
or walking on the stage from the side entrance], "Gentlemen, I apologize for 
my delay but the crowd was so dense about the stand that only this moment 
have I been able to reach you. As you know I am' not a heavyweight in 
body." (Takes his place at the reporter's table to take notes. Moderator 
resumes his seat.) 

Lincoln: "Ladies and Gentlemen: On Saturday last, Judge Douglas and 
myself first met in public discussion. He spoke one hour, I an hour and a 
half, and he replied for half an hour. The order is now reversed. I am to 
speak an hour, he an hour and a half, and then I am to reply for half an 
hour. I propose to devote myself during the first hour to the scope of 



3Q 

what was brought within the range of his half-hour speech at Ottawa. Of 
course there was brought within the scope in that half-hour's speech some- 
thing of his own opening speech. In the course of that opening argument 
Judge Douglas proposed to me seven distinct interrogatories. In my speech 
of an hour and a half, I attended to some other parts of his speech, and 
incidentally, as I thought, answered one of his interrogatories then. I then 
distinctly intimated to him that I would answer the rest of his interrogatories 
on condition only that he should agree to answer as many for me. He made 
no intimation at the time of the proposition, nor did he in reply allude at 
all to that suggestion of mine. I do him no injustice in saying that he 
occupied at least half of his reply in dealing with me as though I had re- 
fused to answer his interrogatories. I now propose that I will answer any 
of the interrogatories, upon condition that he will answer questions from 
me not exceeding the same number. I give him an opportunity to respond. 
(Turns toward Douglas and awaits reply. Douglas smiles and shakes his 
head.) The judge remains silent. I now say that I will answer his inter- 
rogatories, whether he answers mine or not; and that after I have done so, 
I shall propound mine to him. 

My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should be prohibited in all 
the territories of the United States, is full and explicit within itself, and 
cannot be made clearer by any comments of mine. So I suppose in regard 
to the question whether I am opposed to the acquisition of any more territory 
unless slavery is first prohibited therein, my answer is such that I could 
add nothing by way of illustration, or making myself better understood, 
than the answer which I have placed in writing. 

I now proceed to propound to the judge the interrogatories, so far as I 
have framed them. I will bring forward a new installment when I get 
them ready. I will bring them forward now, only reaching to number four. 

The first one is: — (Reading from a paper which he takes from his pocket.) 

Question 1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely unobjection- 
able in all other respects, adopt a state constitution, and ask admission into 
the union under it, before they have the requisite number of inhabitants 
according to the English bill, — some ninety-three thousand, — will you vote 
to admit them? 

Q. 2. Can the people of a United States territory, in any lawful way, 
against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from 
its limits prior to the formation of a state constitution? 

Q. 3. If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that states 
cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing 
in. adopting, and following such decision as a rule of political action? 

Q. 4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory, in disregard of 
how such acquisition may affect the nation on the slavery question? 

I have been in the habit of charging as a matter of belief on my part that, 
in the introduction of the Nebraska bill into Congress, there was a con- 
spiracy to make slavery perpetual and national. I have arranged from time 
to time the evidence which establishes and proves the truth of this charge. 
I recurred to this charge at Ottawa. I shall not now have time to dwell 
upon it at very great length; but inasmuch as Judge Douglas in his reply 
of half an hour, made some points upon me in relation to it, I propose notic- 
ing a few of them. . 

I pass one or two points I have, because my time will very soon expire: but 
I must be allowed to say that Judge Douglas recurs again, as he did upon 
one or two other occasions, to the enormity of Lincoln, — an insignificant 
individual like Lincoln, — upon his ipse dixit charging a conspiracy upon a 
large number of members of congress, the supreme court, and two presidents, 
to nationalize slavery. I want to say that, in the first place, I have made 
no charge of this sort upon my ipse dixit. I have only arrayed the evidence 
tending to prove it, and presented it to the understanding of others, saying 
what I think it proves, but giving you the means of judging whether it proves 
it or not. This is precisely what I have done. I have not placed it upon 
my ipse dixit at all. On this occasion, I wish to recall his attention to a 
piece of evidence which I brought forward at Ottawa on Saturday, showing 



3i 

that he had made substantially the same charge against substantially the 
same persons, excluding his dear self from the category. I ask him to give 
some attention to the evidence which I brought forward that he himself 
had discovered a "fatal blow being struck" against the right of the people 
to exclude slavery from their limits, which fatal blow he assumed as in 
evidence in an article in the Washington Union, published "by authority." 
I ask by whose authority? He discovers a similar or identical provision in 
the Lecompton Constitution. Made by whom? The framers of that con- 
stitution. Advocated by whom? By all the members of the party in the 
nation, who advocated the introduction of Kansas into the union under 
the Lecompton constitution. 

I have asked his attention to the evidence that he arrayed to prove that 
such a fatal blow was being struck, and to the facts which he brought for- 
ward in support of that charge, — being identical with the one which he 
thinks so villainous in me. He pointed it not at a newspaper editor merely, 
but at the president and his cabinet and the members of congress advocating 
the Lecompton Constitution and those framing that instrument. I must 
again be permitted to remind him, that although my ipse dixit may not be 
as great as his, yet it somewhat reduces the force of his calling my attention 
to the enormity of my making a like charge against him. Gentlemen, I have 
finished. (Turning to Douglas.) Go on, Judge Douglas. (Tremendous 
cheering from Lincoln men.) 

Democratic Moderator (Col. Mitchell) (rising and coming forward to 
table): "Ladies and gentlemen: As moderator for the democratic side, it 
becomes my pleasant duty to introduce to you the champion of home rule 
for Kansas, the prince of debaters, whom twice we elected senator from 
Illinois and now propose to make it three times (cheers from Douglas men), 
the favorite son of the prairie state, Stephen A. Douglas." (Cheers.) 

Douglas (arising and coming forward as Moderator retires) : Ladies and 
Gentlemen: "The silence with which you have listened to Mr. Lincoln 
diu-ing his hour is creditable to his vast audience, composed of men of 
various political parties. Nothing is more honorable to any large mass of 
people assembled for the purpose of a fair discussion, than that kind and 
respectful attention that is yielded not only to your political friends, but 
toN those who are opposed to you in politics. 

First, he desires to know if the people of Kansas shall form a constitution 
by means entirely proper and unobjectionable, and ask admission into the 
union as a state, before they have the requisite population for a member of 
congress, whether I will vote for that admission. * * * it is my opinion 
that as she has population enough to constitute a slave state, she has people 
enough for a free state. I will not make Kansas an exceptional case to the 
other states of the union. I hold it to be a sound rule of universal applica- 
tion, to require a territory to contain the requisite population for a member 
of congress before it is admitted as a state into the union. 

The next question propounded to me by Mr. Lincoln is, can the people 
of a territory in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the 
United States, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a 
state constitution? Mr. Lincoln knew that I had answered that question 
over and over again. * * * 

It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to 
the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a territory 
under the constitution, the people have the lawful means to introduce it 
or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day 
or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations. 
Those police regulations can only be established by the local legislature; 
and if the people are opposed to slavery, they will elect representatives to 
that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduc- 
tion of it into their midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their legisla- 
tion will favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the 
Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the people 
to make a Slave Territory or a Free Territory is perfect and complete under 
the Nebraska bill. I hope Mr. Lincoln deems my answer satisfactory on that 
point. 



32 

The third question which Mr. Lincoln presented is, if the Supreme Court 
of the United States shall decide that a state of this Union cannot exclude 
slavery from its own limits, will I submit to it? I am amazed that Lincoln 
should ask such a question. 

(One of the Douglas supporters interrupting) "A school-boy knows better." 

"Yes, a school-boy does know better. Mr. Lincoln's object is to cast an 
imputation upon the Supreme Court. He knows that there never was but 
one man in America, claiming' any degree of intelligence or decency, who 
ever for a moment pretended such a thing. 

The fourth question of Mr. Lincoln is, Are you in favor of acquiring addi- 
tional territory, in disregard as to how such acquisition may affect the 
Union on the slavery question? This question is very ingeniously and 
cunningly put. 

The Black Republican creed lays it down expressly, that under no circum- 
stances shall we acquire any more territory, unless slavery is first prohibited 
in the country. I ask Mr. Lincoln whether he is in favor of that proposition. 
Are you (addressing Mr. Lincoln) opposed to the acquisition of any more 
territory, under any circumstances, unless slavery is prohibited in it? That 
he does not like to answer. When I ask him whether he stands up to that 
article in the platform of his party, he turns, Yankee-fashion, and without 
answering it, asks me whether I am in favor of acquiring territory without 
regard to how it may affect the Union on the slavery question. I answer 
that whenever it becomes necessary, in our growth and progress, to acquire 
more territory, that I am in favor of it, without reference to the question 
of slavery; and when we have acquired it, I will leave the people free to do 
as they please, either to make it slave or free territory, as they prefer. 

I trust now that Mr. Lincoln will deem himself answered on his four 
points. He racked bis brain so much in devising these four questions that 
he exhausted himself, and had not strength enough to invent the others. 
As soon as he is able to hold a council with his advisers, Lovejoy, Farns- 
worth, and Fred Douglass, he will frame and propound others. 

(Lincoln shouters interrupting), "Good. Good." 

You Black Republicans who say "good," I have no doubt think they are 
all good men. I have reason to recollect that some people in this country 
think that Fred Douglass is a very good man. The last time I came here 
to make a speech, while talking from the stand to you, people of Freeport, 
as I am doing to-day, I saw a carriage — and a magnificent one it was — 
drive up and take a position on the outside of the crowd; a beautiful young 
lady was sitting on the box-seat, whilst Fred Douglass and her mother 
reclined inside, and the owner of the carriage acted as driver. I saw this 
in your own town. 

A Lincoln man interrupting, "What of it?" 

All I have to say of it is this, that if you Black Republicans, think that 
the negro ought to be on a social equality with your wives and daughters, 
and ride in a carriage with your wife, whilst you drive the team, you have 
perfect right to do so. I am told that one of Fred Douglass' kinsmen, 
another rich black negro, is now traveling in this part of the State making 
speeches for his friend Lincoln as the champion of black men. 

(A Lincoln man interrupting), "What have you to say against it?" 

All I have to say on that subject is, that those of you who believe that 
the negro is your equal and ought to be on an equality with you socially, 
politically and legally, have a right to entertain those opinions, and of course 
will vote for Mr. Lincoln. 

Now there are a great many Black Republicans" — 

(A Lincoln supporter, interrupting) , "Couldn't you modify it and make it 
brown?" 

Douglas: "Not a bit. I say there are a great many Black Republicans 
of you who do not know how this thing was done. 

(Lincoln men, interrupting) ; "Make it white! White Republicans! White! 
White!" (great clamor.) 

Douglas, (apparently losing his temper) "I wish' to remind you that while 
Mr. Lincoln was speaking there was not a Democrat vulgar and blackguard 
enough to interrupt him. But I know that the shoe is pinching you. I am 




STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 



"There can be no neutrals in this war — only patriots or traitors." — Douglas. 
May 1, 1861. 



33 

clinching Lincoln now and you are scared to death for the result. I have 
seen this thing before, I have seen men make appointments for joint discus- 
sions, and the moment their man has been heard, try to interrupt and prevent 
a fair hearing of the other side. I have seen your mobs before, and defy 
your wrath. (Tremendous applause.) My friends, do not cheer, for I need 
my whole time. * * * I know Mr. Lincoln's object; he wants to divide 
the Democratic party, in order that he may defeat me and get to the Senate. 

Democratic Moderator: "Judge, your time is just expired." 

\Douglas bows and retires to his chair amidst prolonged Democratic cheer- 
ing.] 

Republican Moderator: "Mr. Lincoln has thirty minutes in which to 
close the debate. Let all be quiet and orderly." 

Lincoln: "My Friends: It will readily occur to you that I cannot, in 
half an hour, notice all the things that so able a man as Judge Douglas can 
say in an hour and a half; and I hope, therefore, if there be anything that 
he has said upon which you would like to hear something from me, but 
which I omit to comment upon, you will bear in mind that it would be 
expecting an impossibility for me to go over his whole ground. I can but 
take up some of the points that he has dwelt upon, and employ my half-hour 
specially oh them. 

The first thing I have to say to you is a word in regard to Judge Douglas' 
declaration about the "vulgarity and blackguardism" in the audience, — tbat 
no such thing, as he says, was shown by any Democrat while I was speaking. 
Now, I only wish, by way of reply on this subject, to say that while I was 
speaking, I used no "vulgarity or blackguardism" toward any Democrat. 

The Judge has again addressed himself to the abolition tendencies of a 
speech of mine made at Springfield in June last. I have so often tried to 
answer what he is always saying on that melancholy theme, that I almost 
turn with disgust from the discussion, — from the repetition of an answer 
to it. I trust that nearly all of this intelligent audience have read that 
speech. If you have, I may venture to leave it to you to inspect it closely, 
and see whether it contains any of those "bugaboos" which frighten Judge 
Douglas. 

He says if I should vote for the admission of a slave state I would be 
voting for a dissolution of the Union, because I hold that the Union cannot 
permanently exist half slave and half free. I repeat that I do not believe 
this government can endure permanently half slave and half free; yet I 
do not admit, nor does it at all follow, that the admission of a single slave 
state will permanently fix the character and establish this as a universal 
slave nation. The Judge is very happy indeed working up these quibbles. 

His hope rested on the idea of visiting- the great "Black Republican" party, 
and making it the tail of his new kite. He knows he was * * * expect- 
ing from day to day to turn Republican and place himself at the head of 
our organization. He has found that these despised "Black Republicans" 
estimate him by a standard which he has taught them none too well, hence 
he is crawling back into his old camp, and you will find him eventually 
installed in full fellowship among those whom he was then battling, and 
with whom he now pretends to be at such fearful variance." 

Republican Moderator \tapping on the table], "Mr. Lincoln, I am sorry 
to say that your half hour has expired." 

Lincoln supporters: "Go on! Go on! Lay him out cold! Go on!" 
(Cheers.) 

Lincoln: "I cannot gentlemen, my time has expired." \ Great applause 
from Lincoln men , 

\Douglas immt Mately rises and very gravely walks off the stage surrounded 
by his followers cheering. Lincoln's men try to carry him off on their 
shoulders, notwithstanding his protests. They cheer boisterously, "Hurrah 
for Old Abe!" etc.] 

Note — If desired, o: e of the several songs printed in this pamphlet could 
be sung informally before or after the debate. Or it could be introduced 
effectively just after tae conclusion of Mr. Lincoln's second speech by the 

-3D 



34 



Republican moderator calling for order and saying, "Ladies and Gentlemen, 
before we disperse I have the pleasure of announcing that we have with us 
the celebrated Monmouth Glee Club which has done us good service during 
this campaign. They will now favor us with a selection." \ Lincoln cheers.] 
Or the Democratic moderator could say, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am 
happy to say that the celebrated Douglas Singers of Chicago are on the 
grounds and will favor us with a selection." [Douglas cheers. "| 



A LINCOLN CAMPAIGN SONG, 1858. 

OLD DAN TUCKER. 

We hear a cry increasing still, 
Like light it springs from hill to hill — 
From Pennsylvania's State it leaps, 
And o'er the Buckeye valley sweeps. 

Get out of the way Stephen Douglas ! 

Get out of the way Stephen Douglas ! 

Get out of the way Stephen Douglas ! 

Lincoln is the man we want to serve us ! 

The Hoosier State first caught the cry, 
The Hawkeye State then raised it high, 
The Sucker State now waits the day, 
When Lincoln leads to victory ! 
Get out of the way, etc. 

Cheer up for victory's on its way, 
No power its onward march can stay, 
As well as to stop the thunder's roar. 
As hope for Douglas to serve us more. 
Get out of the way, etc. 

Then Freemen, rally, one and all, 
Respond to our brave leader's call : 
Free Speech. Free Press, Free Soil, want we, 
And Lincoln to lead for Liberty ! , 

Get out of the way, etc. 

, — Illinois State Journal, Oct. 27, 18oi 



A DOUGLAS SONG OF 1858. 

We won't vote for Lincoln, nor for one of his band, 
We'll stick to brave Douglas as long as we can, 
ITis name is arising from the east to the west, 
Since old Hickory is gone, we think he's the best 
Through these hard times. 

Our Douglas is fearless — he cares for no man. 
He will stand by the Union as long as he can. 
Though Buck may oppose him, he'll force him to yield, 
To give up the fight and then leave the field, 
Through these hard times. 

— Chicago Times, Oct. 27. 1858 



OH, YOU CAN'T GO TO THE CAPER, STEPHEN. 

Our sucker pole is planted, 

Our flag is now unfurled. 
For Abe we go undaunted, 

We proclaim it to the world. 
Ye slanderers of Republicans 

Lay down your pen and paper, 
For Little Stephen's race is run — 

He cannot go the caper. 

And now huzzah, my lively lads, 

We'll take a noble stand 
In favor of our Statesman, 

The greatest of the land. 
The wood-chopper of Sangamo, 

Who dares our rights to maintain, 
And never will submit to 

A Douglas' selfish reign. 
From the Wide-Awake Vocalist. A Republican campaign song book of 1860. 



35 

"WIDE-AWAKE CLUB" SONG. 
(Tune — "A Wet and a Flowing Sea".) 

Oh, hear you not the wild huzzas 

That come from every State? 
For honest Uncle Abraham, 

The people's candidate? 
He is our choice, our nominee, 
A self-made man and true ; 
We'll show the Democrats this fall 
What honest Abe can do. 

Then give us Abe, and Hamlin, too, 

To guide our gallant ship, 
With Seward, Sumner, Chase, and Clay, 
And then a merry trip. 

I hear that Doug is half inclined 

To give us all leg-bail, 
Preferring exercise on foot 

To riding on a rail. 
For Abe has one already mauled 
Upon the White House plan ; 
If once Doug, gets astride of that, 
He is a used-up man. 

Then give us Abe, and Hamlin, too, 

To guide our gallant ship, 
With Seward, Sumner, Chase, and Clay, 
And then a merry trip. 

— From Hutchinson's Republican Songster. 



NEW NURSERY BALLADS. 
(Good for Little Democrats.) 

Sing a song of Charleston ! 

Bottle full of Rye ! 
All the Douglas delegates 

Knocked into a pi — 
For when the vote was opened, 

The South began to sing, 
"Your little Squatter Sovereign 

Shan't be our King" ! 

Hi diddle, diddle ! The Dred Scott riddle ! 

The Delegates scatter like loons ! 
The Little Doug swears to see the sport, 

And the Southerners count their spoons. 

There was a little Senator 

Who wasn't very wise, 
He jumped into Convention 

And scratched out both his eyes ; 
And when he found his eyes were out. 

With all his might and main, 
He bolted off to Baltimore 

To scratch them in again. 



THE BOY'S WISH. 
(From the Wide-Awake Vocalist, a republican campaign song book of 1S60. ) 

Song for Children. 

Air — If I were a Little Bird. 

If I were a man, six feet in my boots, 

I'd be at the ballot box, watching the votes ; 

Or out among the people with flags of starry blue, 

I'd have a happy time — say, would not you? 

Oh, I would make a stump-speech in the pleasant dell, 
The bob-o-link, my sexton, to ring his silver bell, 
Wood-flowers repeating the glory of the skies, 
Should clasp their green hands and smile with their eyes. 

I should cross the prairie, where the wild flowers bloom. 

And visit honest Lincoln in his western home ; 

And its pulses are true as the tides of the main. 

For they say his heart is broad as the prairie's sea-like plain. 



36 



"A DOUGLAS TO THE FRAY." 
(A Campaign Song of 1858.) 

BY JOHN BRODGHAM. 

When Saxon raid, 

With brand and blade, 
O'er Scotia's borders came, 

And gave the land, 

With bloody hand, 
To the pillage and to flame ; 

'Twas thus rang out 

The welcome shout, 
From mountain and from brae ; 

"God and our right ! 

Stand firm and fight"! 
A Douglas to the fray !" 

Oh never was 

Unworthy cause 
Linked with that rallying cry, 

To friends a spell, 

To foes a knell, 
Whene'er it pierced the sky ; 

And as the shout, 

Rang fiercely out. 
Fate owned its conquering sway : 

Stand firm and fight ! 

For truth and right ! 
"A Douglas to the fray !" 

On story's page, 

In every age. 
Through every path of fame, 

In glory's round 

May still be found 
Enrolled, that deathless name. 

Speed as of old, 

The chieftan bold. 
Who bears it at this dav : 

Stand firm and fight. 

For truth and right ! 
"A Douglas to the fray !" 

— Quincv. Til., Whig, Nov. IS. m 



DOUGLAS' COMPLAINT. 

(From the Wide- Awake Vocalist, a republican campaign song book of 1860.) 

He punished me — in fight you see, 
And said I had the wrong of It ; 
For I am small and he is tall 
And that's the short and long of It. 

He split a rail through my coat tall, 
He quickly thrust the prong of it; 
I'm five feet one, that lofty son 
Is six feet four and strong of it. 



UNCLE ABE. 

(From the Lincoln Campaign Songster, 1858.) 

(Tune — Nellie Bly.) 

Uncle Abe, Uncle Abe ! here we are again. 

We've got a platform now we think that will not bend or strain, 

Beat the drum, unfurl the flag, freedom is for all. 

And so we fling it to the breeze as in the ranks we fall. 

Chorus. 

Ho, Uncle Abe 1 Listen Uncle Abe ! and see, 

We sing for you, work for you, hurrah for liberty ! 

Uncle Abe. we have tried, and we've found him true. 
We know that he is honest in the work ho has to do. 
Uncle Abe has his faults and so have o*her men. 
But in firmness for the Union, we'll not find his like again. 




THE LINCOLN MONUMENT. 



37 

Uncle Abe is the man for the work in hand ; 
He knows the ropes about the ship upon> whose deck we stand ; 
Waves may dash and winds may roar, but he'll guide us on, 
Till slavery's storm is over and port of peace is won. 



EMERSON ON LINCOLN'S LITERARY ABILITY. 

He is the author of a multitude of good sayings, so disguised as pleasant- 
ries that it is certain they had no reputation at first but as jests; and only 
later by the very acceptance and adoption they find in the mouths of millions, 
turn out to be the wisdom of the hour. But the weight and penetration of 
many passages in his letters, messages, and speeches, hidden now by the very 
closeness of their application to the moment, are destined hereafter to a 
wide fame. What pregnant definitiveness! What unerring common sense! 
What foresight! and, on great occasions, what lofty and more than national; 
what human tone! 

His brief speech at Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by words on 
any recorded occasion. This and one other American speech, that of John 
Brown to the court that tried him, and a part of Kossuth's speech at Bir- 
mingham, can only be compared with each other and with no fourth. 



DEDICATION OF GETTYSBURG BATTLE FIELD. 
Lincoln's greatest literary effort. 

Four score and seven years ago "our fathers brought forth on this con- 
tinent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition 
that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or 
any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a 
great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that 
field as a final resting place for those who have gave their lives that the nation 
might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we can- 
not hollow this ground. The brave ment, living and dead who struggled here, 
have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world 
will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget 
what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to 
the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobry ad- 
vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining 
before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that 
cause for which they gave the last fulk measure of devotion; that we here 
highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, 
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the 
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth? 

Note— In June, 1863. the Confederate forces invaded the Northern states and encountered 
the Federal forces at Gettysburg. Pennsylvania. June 29, 30 and July 1. in a contest which 
marked ' 'the high tide of the Civil war." Congress purchased a portion of the battle-fleld for 
a cemetery in which to bury the dead soldiers, and in November, 1863, at the dedication 
exercises, Lincoln delivered the above brief address. 



A LAST GLIMPSE OF THE RIVALS. 

DOUGLAS AT THE INAUGURATION OF LINCOLN. 

When the president-elect, on inauguration day, stepped out upon the plat- 
form that had been erected in front of the eastern portico of the capitol, he 
found the senior senator from Illinois among the distrmguished men who 
sat awaiting him. Mr. Lincoln, as if to add. to the novelty of his situation, 
was dressed in fine clothes, of which for the moment, he appeared to be all 



3« 

too conscious. In one hand he held a new silk hat; in the other, a gold- 
headed cane. What to do with them perplexed him. After some hesitation, 
he put the cane into a corner; but he could not find a place for the hat, 
which he evidently was unwilling to lay on the rough board floor. As he 
stood there in embarrassment, with the waiting multitude looking up 
curiously at him, his old rival came to his rescue. Taking the precious hat 
from its owner's hand, Douglas held it, while Lincoln took the oath of office 
and delivered his inaugural address. The incident, simple in itself, forms 
a dramatic climax to the lifelong competition between them. As Lincoln 
stands forth crowned with the highest honors to which their conflicting am- 
bitions had aspired, Douglas in the background, humbly holds the victor's 
hat. — (Rothschild, Alonzo, Houghton, Niffln & Co.) 

Note— Exactly three months later, Douglas died at his home in Chicago and a little over 
four years later Lincoln was assassinated in Washington. 



BURY ME IN THE MORNING. 

BX STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS 1 . ■ 

Bury me in the morning, mother, 

let me have the light 

Of one bright day on my grave, mother, 

Ere you leave me alone with the night ; 
Alone in the night of the grave, mother, 

'Tis a thought of terrible fear, 
And you will be here alone, mother, 

And stars will be shining here ; 
So bury me in the morning, mother, 

And let me have the light 
Of one bright day on my grave, mother, 

Ere I'm alone with the night. 

You tell me of a Saviour's love, mother, 

1 feel it is in my heart 

But oh ! from this beautiful world, mother, 

'Tis hard for the young to part, 
Forever to part, when here, mother, 

The soul is fain to stay ; 
For the grave is deep and dark, mother, 

And heaven seems far away. 
Then bury me in the morning, mother, 

And let me have the light 
Of one bright day on my grave, mother, 

Ere I'm alone with the night. 
— From the Life of Stephen A. Douglas, published at No. 37, Park Row, New 
York, 1861. 



LAST WORDS OF DOUGLAS. 

The Chicago Post has the following touching paragraph in regard to the 
last moments of Senator Douglas: 

"tell my children to love and uphold the constitution." 

A few hours before his death, Senator Douglas revived from the condition 
of almost total unconsciousness in which he had lain for many hours. His 
mind seemed to resume its wonted faculties, and he conversed in a feeble 
voice with those around him. He expressed a knowledge that death was 
approaching. His devoted wife, still keeping her long and anxious vigils at 
his bedside, asked the dying statesman if he had any message to leave for his 
children, Robert and Stephen. The question at first was not heard, but upon 
the wife's repeating it, his voice and frame seemed suddenly to possess new 
strength as he replied, "Tell my children to love and uphold the Constitution." 
Tney were almost the last words he spoke. A few moments afterwards, he 
desired to be raised higher upon the pillow in order that he might look put 
from his window. The wish was complied with. One of the physicians ex- 
pressed a doubt as to the ease of his position; he answered with feeble 
utterance. "It is comfortable." His eyes soon closed, his head sank upon the 
pillow, his lips faintly articulated "death — death — death!" and the spirit of 
life had departed. 



39 



Bibliography of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. 



Arnold, Isaac Newton — The Life of Abraham Lincoln; debate; Chap. IX, 
pp. 139-152; few excerpts, good general description with anecdotes; Chicago: 
A. C. McClurg & Co., 1891. 

Blaine, James G. — Twenty years of Congress, 1861-1881; debate, Vol. I, pp. 
143-150; good general sketch and comparison; good political view; Norwich, 
Conn: McHenry Bill Publishing Co., 1884. 

Brooks, Noah — Abraham Lincoln and the Downfall of American Slavery; 
debate, Chapter XIII, pp. 161-178; general description and excerpts; New 
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1894. 

Browne, Francis F. — xae Everyday Life of Abraham Lincoln; debate, pp. 
277-307; good sketch with anecdotes; New York and St. Louis: ' N. D. 
Thompson Publishing Co., 1886. 

Chittenden, L. E. — Abraham Lincoln's Speeches; debate, 117-181; extracts; 
New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1895. 

Hapgood, Norman. — Abraham Lincoln, the Man of the People. Debate: pp. 
141-148. General, good. New York: The MacMillan Co., 1899. 

■ Herndon, William Henry and Weik, Jesse William. — Abraham Lincoln, 
the true story of a great life. With an introduction by Horace White. De- 
bate, V. 2 Chap. IV, pp. 88-132. Excellent contemporary account by Horace 
White who attended debates for the Chicago "Press and Tribune" for Lincoln 
side; few excerpts; description of campaign. New York: D. Appleton & 
Co., 1892. 

Lincoln. Abraham and Douglas. Stephen Arnold, — The first Lincoln 
and Douglas debate at Ottawa, 111., Aug. 21, 1858; Boston, 1897; (Old South 
leaflets, general ser.) V. 4, No. 85'; debate; text only. 

Lincoln, Abraham. — Speeches of Abraham Lincoln, including inaugurals 
and proclamations. Selected and edited with an introduction and prefatory 
notes by G. Mercer Adam; New York: A. L. Burt Co., 1896; debate, pp. 
94-223. Each- debate prefaced by brief synopsis. 

Nicolay, John G. and Hay, John. — Abraham Lincoln; complete works; 
debate, challenge and arrangements for, Vol. I, pp. 273-277; Ottawa, 111., 
Aug. 21, 1858, I, 277-305; Freeport, 111., Aug. 27, 1858, I, 305-335; Jonesboro, 
111., Sept. 15, 1858, I, 335-369; Charleston, 111., Sept. 18, 1858, I, 369-412: 
Galesburg, 111., Oct. 7. 1858, I, 425-455; Quincy, 111., Oct. 13, 1858, I, 456-485; 
Alton, 111., Oct. 15, 1858, I, 485-518. New York: The Century Co., 1894. 

Nicolay. John G. and Hay, John. — Abraham Lincoln; A History: debate. 
Vol. II, Chaps. VIII and IX; Analysis, excerpts and thorough narrative; 
New York: The Century Co., 1890. 

Oldroyd. Osbourn Hamiline. — Words of Lincoln, including several hundred 
opinions of his life and character; debate, pp. 29-36; Lincoln excerpts; no 
comment; Washington: O. H. Oldroyd, 1895. 

Rothschild. Alonzo. — Lincoln, Master of Men; A Study' of Character: 
debate, pp. 101-112; anecdotes and digest; Boston, 1906. 

Schurz. Carl. — Abraham Lincoln: An Essay: debate, pp. 43-53; view of 
political situation and excerpts; Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin 
& Co., 1891. Republished 1899 in Riverside Literature Series, No. 133, 
April 5. 



40 

Tarbell, Ida M. — The Life of Abraham Lincoln drawn from original 
sources and containing many speeches, letters and telegrams; debate, Chap. 
XVIII, pp. 307-323; general description with quotations from those present; 
New York: The DOubleday & McClure Co., 1900. 

Washburne, Elihu Benjamin. — Abraham Lincoln; His Personal History 
and Public Record; speech by Hon. E. B. Washburne, of Illinois, May 29, 
1860; Washington, 1860; (36th Cong., 1st session House; appendix to the 
Congressional Globe; debate, pp. 377-380. Interesting speech, contemporary 
political views favorable to Lincoln; excerpts. 

Periodicals. 

Brown, William Garrett. — Lincoln's Rival. Atlantic; 89; 226. A good 
comparison of characters and analysis of situation. 

Recollections of the First Debate Between Lincoln and Douglas. — 
The Magazine of History, III; 77; debate, p. 77; anecdotes. Pine description 
of Lincoln's moral power in debate; New York: William Abbott, 1905. 

Scripps, John Locke. — The First Published Life of Abraham Lincoln; 
debate, Chap. VIII, pp. 67-83; good narrative, digest and selections; The 
Canbrook Press, 1900, Detroit, Mich. 

Schurz, Carl. — Abraham Lincoln. Atlantic: 67; 721; debate, 732-734. 
General sketch with analysis. 

Villard, Henry. — Recollections of Lincoln. Atlantic: '93; 165. One or two 
quaint anecdotes of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. 

Washburne, E. B. — Abraham Lincoln in Illinois. North American Review: 
141; 309. Sketch of Freeport debate. 




THE DOUGLAS MONUMENT. 



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